


WHISPER TO ME

by chrysanthemumsies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Musical Instruments, Mutual Pining, Parenthood, Post-Season/Series 04, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysanthemumsies/pseuds/chrysanthemumsies
Summary: Sherlock picks up playing the guitar. John falls more and more in love with every passing day.





	1. one

_Tire of me if you will, my dear_  
_I will not tire of you_  
_And this is the world as I see it now_  
_Turns out that nothing is fair_  
_You can leave me if you wish, my love_  
_But I'm not going anywhere_

[“10 AM, Gare du Nord” by Keaton Henson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LluhRTBk9g&t=0s&index=10&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg)

 

*** * ***

 

It is a simple fact, not an opinion nor any sort of half-arsed claim, that Sherlock Holmes is a passionate man that feels things in a potent, all-encompassing way, one in which he takes great lengths to pretend doesn’t exist.

John watches. John watches him swing Rosie in the air with a laugh as bright as the morning air, watches him doze on the couch with his whole body melted into boyish innocence, watches him as their skin brushes and John gives a tentative smile, the grin he receives in return capable of launching a thousand ships to their deaths. Hears him quietly sob in the night when he believes nobody is awake, his thick shouts from nightmares and the shuddering of his breath whenever they’re at a crime scene with too much tragedy. Watches him dance the waltz to lure a baby to sleep, putter around John’s health with gentle hands, hum as he prepares dinner in the kitchen, chase suspects down alleyways with constant reassurances to verify that John is still right behind him.

It is a more likely thing, John supposes, that eyes so soft and so careful are masking the depths of an ocean behind them.

Sometimes, when John is very, very lucky, late into the night after a case or while Rosie naps on one of their shoulders or even sometimes over a simple, quiet breakfast, he can catch the briefest wave. An impossible gentling of the face, painted in adoration and longing and happiness all in one as Sherlock Holmes lets his facade fall from the great brain, and into the even greater heart.

Such Moments are John’s favorites.

 *** * *** **  
  
**

One day, no cases on in the last couple of weeks and Sherlock’s mannerisms beginning to get snappish, John proposes that they visit the antique’s fair over in Islington. It’s a bi-weekly event, rows of tables lining the passage swarming with people, the various stalls overflowing with the most delightfully random of artifacts. It’s an uncharacteristically warm September morning outside, after all, one of London’s rare cloudless days with a shimmering sun that is near-white against the blue; the perfect day for a stroll.

“Could be fun,” John says offhandedly, dabbing at Rosie’s chin with a flannel. She’s old enough to handle her own spoon, a whopping 18 months, but breakfast is still a messy affair. “I know you like antiques, never knowing what trinkets and such you’ll find through the clutter. It’s a beautiful day outside. We’re getting a bit stir-crazy, too, so an outing could do us all some good.”

Sherlock, twitchy as he lounges on the couch, swivels his hips without warning so he’s upside-down with his bare feet lightly thudding against the wall. He narrows his eyes. “Hm,” he hums.

John feels his lips twitch despite himself. “I’ll buy you candy floss.”

An approving sound. “Well, in that case,” Sherlock says, “I’ll go and get ready.”

“Why bother?” John teases, gesturing down to Sherlock’s pajama-bottoms-and-tee-clad frame, dressing gown long since shed in his restlessness. “You look perfectly decent to me. Just slide on some slippers and a scarf, and you’ll be ready to go.”

Sherlock flops over on himself, somehow emerging upright on the floor in the whirlwind move. With the hintings of a sly smile, he maneuvers around the coffee table while tugging his shirt over his head, bunching up the ratty tee before pelting it in John’s direction. John barks a laugh, snatching it away from his face. The fabric is still warm. Rosie babbles sheep noises in delight from beside him.

Sherlock turns and strolls down the hall, pale scars on his back just catching the light. “How do I look now, John?” he questions, delightfully playful.

Beautiful. “Like the next flu victim,” John manages to call back with practiced ease, years of experience masking any sort of break in his voice. Sherlock’s laugh echoes into the sitting room. John glances down at the tee in his hands dumbly. He wants to bring it up to his face, wants to inhale the familiar scent that has always soothed him, always meant ‘comfort’ and ‘safe’ to him in the years when his mental state was anything but. He wants to tug the shirt on and never take it off.

The urge frightens him. John quickly chucks the fabric across the room as if burned, as far away from him as he can get it. Satisfied and more than a little uneasy, he picks Rosie up from her highchair to go get her dressed.

Outside is just this side of too warm for outer coats, the remnants of summer’s heat unwilling to let go of autumn’s rightful claim. John had pulled out the pram, but Sherlock had insisted that at Rosie’s age she should be walking with better mobility than she was currently. John proceeded to say no, that’s just technical milestones at unrealistic timeframes and that Rosie was actually quite advanced for her age, but Sherlock had waved him away and now allows her to grasp his index finger as he patiently helps her down 221’s front steps. Hiding a smile, John forgoes the pram and hails a cab.

In Islington, there’s a pedestrian road named Camden’s Passage that is the bulk of the antique stalls, already bustling with people on the Saturday morning, nearly noon. Predictably, Rosie whinges roughly two minutes into the journey from the cab, across the street, and to the passage, stubbornly refusing to walk, so Sherlock scoops her up and atop his shoulders with practiced ease.

“Shuh-la!” Rosie cries in delight.

John turns his head to the side and smirks.

“Shut up,” Sherlock grumbles.

It’s immediately apparent that this trip is more for Sherlock than it is for John and Rosie. While the beginning stalls are quite boring, lines of gaudy jewelry here and shiny tin tea sets there, the hidden treasures are what Sherlock enjoys sleuthing for the most.

“John, look!” he exclaims, holding up a cherry wood tobacco pipe with a long, elegant stem. On its bowl is a carving that depicts a ship lost at sea. John levels him with wry, narrowed eyes.

“No,” he says.

Sherlock opens his mouth, and then closes it again. His fingers squeeze lightly where they’re wrapped around Rosie’s leg. “I’m not going to use it,” he says quietly, though there’s a longing in his eyes as he tilts the pipe this way and that in his hand. Any moment now, his lower lip will push out into a pout.

With a sigh, John steps closer to study the pipe himself, noting how the wood catches red in the sunlight. The carvings are clean and detailed, the result of a steady and practiced hand. “It is a nice pipe,” he admits.

Sherlock quirks his mouth, giving the pipe a lasting look before setting it back on the table. He rearranges Rosie into a more secure position with a jiggle, and spots a table plushed and padded with dozens of toy animals. “Oh, Watson, how would you like to perform an autopsy on a stuffed elephant? Hm?” They bound away.

John makes to follow, but it’s as if there’s a tether at his waist, keeping him in place without a hint of yield. He knows _exactly_ what it means. He sighs again and turns back to the table to the vendor's glittering eyes, pulling out his wallet. “How much for the pipe, then?”

 

*** * ***

 

On the nights when John can’t quite keep his eyes closed, the even breathing of his daughter across the room doing nothing to soothe him to sleep, he instead draws himself into his own meager mind palace that Sherlock knows nothing about.

His only has one room, no doors, and a window that opens up to the roaming moors where his grandparents had lived. Inside, the living room of 221B is as much of a clone to its real-life counterpart as John could ever manage. It’s not perfect, but he’s not using it for the storage of tobacco ash and/or various melting points, so it fulfills its purpose just fine.

There’s only one memory he’s intent on keeping safe.

He feels arms, strong and warm, cage around him and draw him against a hammering heart. He feels air stir at his hairline. He feels a dry hand press at the nape of his neck, fingers curling him closer as if he would disappear at any moment. He hears an unsteady sigh.

_“It is what it is.”_

From there, during the pivotal moment of John’s lifelong emotional state, it only gets worse.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ he mumbles. His forehead is pressed to Sherlock’s sternum, and both of his hands find themselves against his broad chest, fingertips digging into his dressing gown. The tears won’t stop.

Sherlock’s hands tighten. _“No, John, you have nothing to be-”_

John pulls back, cutting him off. Sherlock’s arms loosen until his hands are merely resting against the curves of John’s shoulder blades. John looks up to meet his gaze, but Sherlock’s eyes are closed. There’s moisture dewing on his dark eyelashes. _“Sherlock,”_ he says. _“Not this. Not… I’m sorry for everything. For every single bloody thing. You…”_ His breath hiccups. _“I am so,_ so _sorry.”_

His eyes don’t open. John can feel his voice through his chest, where his palms are still connected. _“Nothing,”_ he says, voice breaking. _“You have nothing to apologize for.”_

 _“Nothing?”_ John huffs in disbelief. His hands begin to trail up, up, up, and Sherlock’s eyes flutter open in surprise when his fingertips brush the cut beside his ear, half-hidden by his hair, where John’s fist had sliced open his skin. John’s other hand barely touches beneath his right eye, almost catching on his bottom lashes, where the white of his sclera is still stained red. Sherlock’s stopped breathing.

 _“Everything,”_ John whispers. The hand on Sherlock’s cheek drops back down to the center of his chest, where he kneads into the scar that his wife had made. _“I have everything to apologize for.”_

And then Sherlock’s face shatters, so wonderful and horrible all at once, and John’s nose is squashed against his neck when his arms pull him back and tighten, elbows hooked around his shoulders and chest shaking in quiet sobs. John goes willingly and wraps his arms around Sherlock’s waist, murmuring words into his skin that he couldn’t remember if he tried. They’re broken, John knows, and all that’s left for them is to shudder together through the pulsing waves and try not to drown.

It’s an unsure thing, after all of this when John draws himself back to the present, if he’ll drift to sleep or cry his eyes out.

And yet, despite that, he always takes the gamble.

 

 *** * *** **  
  
**

Hours later finds the pair (and a half) at a small café on Camden’s Passage for brunch, satiated on crepes and crisp summer fruits. Sherlock’s lips are tinged with blue from the candy floss earlier that prompted his appetite, but it’s too endearing to be pointed out.

“Overall a successful morning,” John says, having bought a cloth bag currently bulging with all of his purchases. He’s delightfully content, stomach full but not yet bursting at the seams. It’s one of those simple moments, so warm and comfortable that John has to make more of an effort _not_ to smile.

“Quite,” Sherlock replies, fiddling with a 3D puzzle in his hands. Rosie is entertaining herself with a bundle of straws. Sherlock suddenly looks up, eyes narrowing at John in that familiar, thoughtful way that should be more unnerving than it is. “What did you buy for me?”

Damn. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Sherlock makes a pleased sound, setting the puzzle off to the side so he can fold his hands together. “Multiple presents? I must’ve been a very good boy this year.”

John rolls his eyes, perching his chin in his palm. He lightly taps their feet together beneath the table, which isn’t too difficult considering it’s only truly big enough for one. “Yes, multiple. How’d you know I bought you something? Sitting on my wallet at a slightly different angle, am I?”

Sherlock snorts. “I hardly have to deduce you anymore,” he says. “I know you too well. I can tell, at the very least, that you’ve certainly bought nothing for yourself. You would never go to a shopping area with a wallet full without purchasing something for me and Rosie. Obviously. In fact, I’d venture to say that there’s even something for Mrs. Hudson in that bag.”

“Obviously? Why obviously?”

“Because,” he says, eyes boring through John’s and tendering the barest amount, “Between the both of us, I’m the brain. That leaves you the heart, and you never fail to do something kind for someone else. You’re more heart than I am brain. That’s why, ‘obviously’.”

Despite his thrumming heart, John pretends to ponder over that for a moment. “You just called me an idiot again, didn’t you?”

Sherlock groans to the ceiling with a smile that betrays him. “Of _course_ that’s the part you’d focus on! I’m not always out to insult your intelligence, you’re aware.”

“I don’t know,” John says, using all of his strength to hide his own grin. He leans down to rummage through his bag. “Am I capable of being aware?”

“Oh, for _God’s sake -_ what are you doing?”

Rosie’s fussing, so John pulls out a toy cell phone he had gotten inside one of the stores. Instead of pressing the light-up buttons, it goes right into her mouth. “I’m going to give you the presents I bought, as per your not-deduction.”

“Don’t bother. You were planning on them being a surprise, I’d rather wait and see if you can manage to catch me unawares.”

John looks at him for a long moment, still, and then nods. “Okay,” he agrees, and then lugs up his bag to his lap.

Sherlock looks alarmed. “John, I said-”

“I know what you said,” he says. “You’d be more surprised by me giving them to you after agreeing not to, wouldn’t you say?”

Before he can reply, John dumps an armful of _stuff_ onto the table, a balanced variety of just enough randomness to avoid a pattern. The tiny makeup box nearly falls off the table, but John catches it with a quick hand. “Happy Christmas, Birthday, Halloween, Easter… all of that.”

“John,” Sherlock breathes, eyes alight and a touch overwhelmed for the briefest of moments. John fears he’s going to cry. But then, blinking himself back to the present, Sherlock grins. “Are those Star Wars socks? I thought you knew me better.”

“Turn ‘em inside out.”

He does, his nimble fingers flipping the fabric. He hums at the sight of Leonard Nimoy, hand raised in the Vulcan salute with ‘Illogical’ typed in bright red boldface. _“There_ we are. Though this has to be some sort of copyright infringement.”

John shrugs. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Sherlock huffs and digs some more, past the makeup (for last-minute disguises) and a withered 1929 edition of Shakespeare’s _Henry V_ (the only literature he’s admitted to liking), and his hands freeze above a navy, rectangular box. His fingers flutter.

Before he can ask, John says, “Yes.”

He studies John for a beat, and then gently turns back to the case and slides off the top. Nestled in maroon velvet is the pipe. “I…” he starts, and he’s looking at the box so lovingly that John nearly feels jealous. Perhaps a bit more than ‘nearly’. Sherlock swallows audibly. “You bought it.”

“Of course I did,” John says, turning his head to watch his daughter gnaw on her toy. In reality, he just can’t face the raw emotion in Sherlock’s eyes, not in the middle of a half-empty café in Islington without preparing himself beforehand. “You shouldn’t be surprised.”

“John,” Sherlock says again, shaking his head. “Why?”

John sits back up in his chair, and at the look on his friend’s face he suddenly wishes he could ruffle his hair without looking like a lovesick fool. As it is, he’s not doing much better. “You… you don’t seem to realize that you have an even bigger heart than I do. That hardly means I have the brain, obviously you have enough for the both of us, just.” He scratches at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I’m shit at this, you know. You’ve been a saint about all of this, of the baby crying in the middle of the night and the diaper runs and being, frankly, the best godfather a bloke could ask for. I just thought… I should return the favor, is all. For being, well, you.”

For a long moment, Sherlock just stares at the pipe in his hands, blinking furiously as if he’s battling something in that great mind of his. And then a piece in his expression breaks, and he sets the box down to scrub his hands over his face, propped up on the table. John watches, alarmed, as he takes in a slow, shaky gulp of air. And then: “You should warn me,” he says in a gruff voice, muffled by his palms. “When you. Do that. When you say those things.”

Sherlock’s face is still hidden. John feels relief that he didn’t break his best friend, and then fondness, and then… well, he thinks. Something new. Something awfully familiar, though something he’s never felt this potently before. Something he probably knows the name to, but would never even _think_ of in fear of inducing a panic attack. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but then realizes that he doesn’t even know where to begin.

And then Sherlock looks back up, eyes glassy and touched with red, and the way he looks at John says more than John ever could. It also utterly, unbelievably terrifies him. So John does what any other emotionally-constipated British male would do in the face of public intimacy: he makes a joke.

“Are you going to try out the makeup kit here? I don’t know if it’s quite your shade, but there’s some lipstick in there that I think will-”

Sherlock laughs, and by the relaxing of his shoulders John can tell he’s also relieved by the change in subject. They look back to the table. There’s only a few more little things that John nabbed up, and Sherlock sets down the pipe to instead study a piece of sheet music.

 _“‘Con te partirò’_ for violin,” Sherlock reads aloud.

John shrugs. “It’s not an entirely selfless gift. That’s my favorite opera.”

“That’s everyone’s favorite opera,” Sherlock says drily, but he’s smiling all the same. Then his brows furrow. “Where did you get this?”

“There’s small music shop me and Rosie passed through. You were in the loo.”

“Hm.” He collects together all of the gifts, and then reaches beneath the table to heft up his own half-filled cloth bag to gather them into. Oh, John thinks with vague surprise; he hadn’t even noticed Sherlock had bought a few things himself. John’s nothing if not unobservant, as per usual.

Sherlock clears his throat. “Is it alright if we stop by the shop on our way out?”  

“Of course.”

They’ve already paid. John hooks his bag over his shoulder and then picks up his daughter, perching her on his side. Before they can leave, Sherlock purses his lips and skirts around the table to gently transfer Rosie to his own arms. John lets her go willingly. Neither men move, and Sherlock shuffles from foot to foot.

“John,” he says, evidently his favorite word at the Moment (well, most moments). His eyes dart from his shoes to the window to quite literally anywhere else, but when he finally settles on John’s face, his stare is purposeful. “I… that is, thank you. Very much.”

John smiles, almost sadly. Slowly, carefully, he reaches up a hand onto the other man’s shoulder, thumb brushing the skin opened by his collar. Sherlock’s eyes widen. John doesn’t do anything else, just simply squeezes the warm muscles and bones there and takes a breath as if to speak, but then it rushes out of him in a sigh and his smile dwindles, feeling his face and his eyes open awfully into something he can’t name. His hand drops down to Rosie’s head, softly brushing her curls, before John releases them altogether to turn towards the doorway.

It’s a few seconds before he can hear Sherlock follow.

 

*** * ***

 

John wonders if he’s always been this way. If Sherlock’s been this sensitive this whole time, where an errant compliment or a word from Rosie could push him to tears, if the moment gives. If his emotions have always been so plainly written across his face, and if John has just been so unbelievably unobservant about noticing them.

He thinks back to before the Fall, to the days where Sherlock was striking and harsh, cool and calculating, permitting an impossible air of condescension and capable (oh-so-willing) of tearing apart any passerby with his sharp tongue. Like he was always trying to prove himself. John had felt used, those days, like he was merely there to pass the time, but he didn’t care. He finally felt _alive._  He was using Sherlock as a replacement for Afghanistan, after all, so it would be wrong to mind it happening to him. They were both a bit not-good, even from the start.

He thinks of the pool. He thinks of Mrs. Hudson after those Americans had tied her up. He thinks of the rooftop, Sherlock’s hand stretched and grief clear over the phone, of the tears so unlike any disguise he’s ever put on.  

The truth is obvious; _of course_ Sherlock’s always been this way. He’s just been so impossibly scared of showing it all. Of showing it to a world that’s done nothing but condemn him for his differences, of showing it to a flatmate that’s done the same. _\- Friend? - Colleague._

_\- You machine._

If John ever admits that to himself, however, he’ll drown so far into his own personal pit of self-loathing that he won’t be able to climb himself out.

He wonders why Sherlock never blames him.

 

*** * ***

 

“Ball!” Rosie cries in delight.

“That’s a banjo, Rosamund,” Sherlock corrects, squinting at the label on the violin strings in his other hand. Anything vaguely round is a ball in Rosie’s book. John shuffles up behind them, dropping a kiss to his daughter’s head and peeking at the box in Sherlock’s hand with a frown.

“I haven’t heard you play much anymore,” he says.

“Then the sheet music wasn’t one of your brightest ideas,” Sherlock shoots back, tilting his head in John’s direction with a smile to soften the blow. There’s an extra second of silence before he continues. “I don’t play at the flat. Not recently, anyway.”

John nearly asks why, but then remembers. Sherrinford. Eurus. Sherlock’s nearly day-long absences once every few weeks, ones that John already knows the reasons behind but would rather not ask after. He misses hearing Sherlock play, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the violin has bad connotations at this point. He mentally chides himself for buying the sheet music. Instead of lingering on it, he hums in acknowledgement and turns back to studying the woodwinds on display.

Sherlock clears his throat and puts the box back on the shelf. “They don’t have my preferred brand here,” he says as he shuffles Rosie to his other side. He peers down at her face, his deduction effortless and gentle. “I believe it’s nearly nap-time, wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Rosie protests, but it’s half-hearted. Sherlock chuckles and nods to the shopkeeper, turning on his heel with John right behind him.

And then promptly freezes.

In front of him, propped up beside the door with a fine layer of dust clinging to its strings, is an acoustic guitar.

“Sherlock?” John asks in worry, rounding around to study his friend’s face. Sherlock’s pale eyes are wide, unblinking, and the pulse fluttering at the hollow of his throat is the only indication that he’s still alive. He’s staring at the instrument as if it’s a treasure he’s spent his life trying to find, or a long-lost family member (bad analogy, disregard). His mouth is slightly parted. John waves a hand in front of his face, but as he figures from experience, not even the man’s pupils show any indication of noticing.

“Is your friend alright?” The shopkeeper asks, an older man with hair down to his waist. John almost replies, but he instead presses his lips together in a tight semblance of a smile, nodding a vague assurance, and turns back to the matter at hand. He’s not sure what he should do. At the very least, he plucks his daughter from Sherlock’s arms in case the mental absence is a hint towards something worse, Rosie none the wiser.

It takes a few moments for Sherlock to realize that his arms are curled around nothing, but when he does, he rushes back to the present with a whoosh of air. He looks at his hands dumbly, then John’s arms, and his eyes are absolutely lost. “I…”

“Are you okay?” John asks, scanning over Sherlock’s face. “We lost you for a minute there.”

“Thinking,” Sherlock murmurs, brows furrowed. He reaches out a hand to touches Rosie’s back, as if the contact gives him strength. He takes a deep breath in, then out. “Something I haven’t thought about in years. Many years. I…” His mouth curves into something bittersweet. “I used to play.”

John blinks. “You used to play the guitar?”

For once, Sherlock doesn’t comment on John’s redundancy. “Yes. Briefly. It was during secondary school, when I was eighteen, and it encompassed my attention that whole summer. This is the same brand, perhaps even the same model. Seeing it… took me by surprise.”

John imagines Sherlock cutting a sharp line with a violin perched on his shoulder, the music guiding him into something both charming and oddly alien, passionate and powerful and unspoken in its elegance. John would’ve never imagined him over something as casual and as warm as a guitar, and he’s not even sure he could conjure up an accurate picture in his mind if he tried. “You don’t seem the type,” he says carefully.

“I’m not,” Sherlock replies quickly, shaking his head, moreso to clear it than anything else. He huffs out a laugh. “I was trying to impress someone.”

Before John can comment on _that,_ the shopkeeper shuffles forward. “Never fails to impress the birds,” he chuckles, and then pauses to study the taller man from the corner of his eye. ‘Or the blokes’ is unspoken, but implied.

To John’s horror, Sherlock snorts and says, “It certainly did the trick.”

“An Alvarez 5029, ash wood,” the man says, as if John hasn’t just had the shock of his life. _‘Romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for others…’_ rings through his head, and he realizes with a jolt that it wasn’t a metaphorical statement. Sherlock knew from _experience._ “She’s a beauty, and has been sittin’ on her stand for far too long. You interested?”

Sherlock spares a glance and Rosie, where she’s dozing off on John’s shoulder. He quirks his lips. “No, not today. I’m sure I couldn’t even make a decent sound, given the chance.”

“That’s what practice is for!”

They banter back and forth for a bit. John tries to stop thinking about Sherlock in love, of clumsily learning chords for an unseen figure perched on his bed, of stuttering and blushing and tripping over his feet and holding out a hand to hold another in his own. Of intimate nights in the dark, of movie theaters, of playful laughs and touches, of pulling another to his chest and letting the same be done to him, and of loving with all of his great big heart with a passion that he’s purged for the past twenty-odd years. John tries to stop thinking about it all. He’s wholly unsuccessful, to the surprise of no one.

“John?” Sherlock asks, drawing their eyes together. “Are you ready to leave?”

He’s decided not to buy it. The shopkeeper took it with good humor, waving them away with a promise that he’ll keep it warm until Sherlock decides to come back for it. Now the man’s back at his work table, polishing the bell of a french horn with careful, precise movements. John stares until he realizes that Sherlock asked him a question.

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then nods, once. Sherlock’s eyes narrow.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m ready.”

 

*** * ***

 

Rosie sleeps through the whole cab ride, and Sherlock stares. John can feel his eyes on his cheek like a physical thing, and he stubbornly refuses to call him out on it or, god forbid, meet his gaze. The air is thick with things unspoken, and John’s head is filled to the brink with questions unasked.

When they arrive to 221B, Rosie is just rousing from her nap, so John changes her nappy and sets her into her favorite toy, a seat surrounded by a variety of knick-knacks where she can jump and spin around to entertain herself. It’s taken up a permanent, colorful residence in the sitting room. Sherlock is wearing a hole into the rug as he paces, face unreadable, and John just sits in his chair and waits.

He doesn’t wait for long. “Oh, go on,” Sherlock finally sighs, falling into the chair opposite and sweeping out his hand. The mild annoyance in his features is oddly comforting.

John doesn’t put up any pretenses. He quotes, almost conversationally, “‘It certainly did the trick’.”

Sherlock’s sigh is completely overdramatic. “Yes, John. Whenever I was an adolescent, and my hormones had pushed my emotions towards ridiculous heights, I had engaged in a… frivolous romance.” There’s bitterness in his voice. “The mistake was never repeated.”

John nods, eyes drawn to the fabric of his jeans. “To confirm,” John says slowly, while his brain flashes warning signs at him (to no avail), “This was with a…”

A beat. “With a what, John?” Sherlock asks in a suspicious voice. “Use your words.”

“Yes, fine. Was it with a woman, or another man?”

It’s silent. When John finally looks up to meet Sherlock’s eyes, he’s surprised to find the other man staring him down with quiet disappointment. There’s also a sense of bewilderment there, as if he just saw a third arm spontaneously sprout from John’s head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Well, how am _I_ supposed to know?” John demands with a fling of his hands, gesturing vaguely in Sherlock’s direction. “You… The first time we met, you told me that women aren’t your area. But then, after that, you saved Irene doing god knows what else, you spent _weeks_ with Janine, and…”

He trails off when Sherlock drops his head into his hands, grounding the heels of his palms into his eyes. He makes a pained sound. “I’m not going to call you an idiot in front of your daughter,” he says through his teeth, evidently the most irritated he’s been at John in months. “So I’m merely going to think it very, very hard, in hopes that you’ll telepathically take the hint.”

Said daughter is watching them with wide, unbothered eyes, as if they were both on a television screen. John ignores the insult and licks his lips, attempting to make his case.

“Sherlock, I just, you’re my best-”

“That hardly forces me to-”

“You can deduce _everything_ about me, and yet you’ve never told-”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s hardly come up in-”

“It’s come up in _plenty_ of-”

“ _Why is it important?_ ”

John stops with a sharp inhale. “What?”

The falter is all Sherlock needs to come in for the kill, bracing his hands on his armrests and leaning forward in an oddly predatorial move. “Why. Is. It. Important?” he enunciates. He’s nearly smiling, but there’s no humor in it. He’s sharply reminiscent of the man John had first met at Bart’s. “You seem to have an obsession with my private life, emphasizing on sexuality, where you’re constantly skirting around the issue with passive aggression and thinly-veiled jealousy. Jealousy for what? Glad you asked, because I have absolutely no idea, seeing as you’ve spent every waking moment assuring the world that ‘John Watson is _not_ gay!’” He does the impression with flourish, shooting up to round around the clutter towards the front door. John almost follows him, except his limbs won’t move and he can’t even _think_ about what he’d do when he caught up to him. His breathing is uneven.

“So,” Sherlock continues, “Despite countless assurances that Janine was for a case and that absolutely nothing happened with the Woman, and the fact that you’re _still_ harassing me about it all _years_ later, I’m at my wit’s end.” He stops by the hatrack, suddenly, utterly deflated, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “John,” he says tiredly. “Why do you need to know?”

When there’s no immediate answer forthcoming, he huffs out a breath and reaches for the doorknob, intent on roaming the streets of London aimlessly until his legs can’t hold him anymore, presumably.

John’s words surprise them both.

“It’s... important,” he says slowly, fists clenching and unclenching on his thighs. He feels flayed open by Sherlock’s rapid-fire accusations, so familiar and so much more cutting than he remembers, and it’s just this side of too much. He swallows. “It’s definitely important, it’s... something I need to know. There’s a reason. I can’t… I can’t say why, yet. Can’t tell you exactly. Not until I can come to terms with it myself.” He looks up towards the doorway, heart hammering so hard he might pass out. Anxiety thrums his blood. “Alright?”

Sherlock’s lips are tight, brows furrowed in frustration, but he relaxes just the barest amount. He blinks once, twice. “Okay,” he says simply.

John lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, and then scrubs a hand over his face. “Go back to the music shop,” he says. “If you want, I mean. Buy the guitar. I’d… I’d like to hear you play. Really. And I think you’d like to play it again, too. The way you looked at it…” He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself if you decided to go tomorrow and it’s gone.”

Sherlock’s biting the inside of his cheek, a nervous tic he’s picked up. “You’re bound to be correct once in awhile,” he finally replies.

John chuckles. They share a small smile, both apologetic, before turning their heads at the same time to break the gaze. Sherlock clears his throat pointedly before he leaves.

“His name was Benjamin,” he says, face turned away. “And he liked to sing.”

The door opens and closes, and the front door downstairs soon follows. The silence is deafening, so John pulls the Union Jack pillow from behind him and promptly screams into the fabric. Rosie giggles in delight.

 

*** * ***

 

Contrary to popular belief, John Watson is no stranger to being in love with a man.

Though, to be completely fair, John builds up this ‘popular belief’ himself with his constant denials over anything that strays away from strictly heterosexual; Sherlock, at least, was correct about that. Ella Thompson said that this is due to internalized shame from a homophobic household, after he had disclosed the absolute chaos from Harry’s coming out. Ella also said that she wanted him to shed out of his comfort zone, to release the preconceived notions his father had thrust upon him and, oh, to try going to a place with a distinct homosexual setting to see if any of it appealed to him.

So, John promptly switched therapists and then nearly died. Maybe that was destiny telling him to get his arse into gear.

John Watson has been in love twice before in his entire life; once, with a perfectly normal woman who had built him up from the ashes she had found him in, and then had (of course) revealed herself to be a dangerous assassin right before getting herself killed.

Second, with a man named James Sholto.

It was an innocent love, one built from long nights of talking beneath desert stars and brushing fingers with chaste smiles. It was an attraction of the mind, of seeing another person for their soul and even the dodgy, messed-up bits, and then still finding yourself wanting to see _more._ It was the oddest, most wonderful thing. He wasn’t attracted to him like he was a woman; there were no possessive kisses, or an all-encompassing lust that he could hardly bear. No, he wanted to know James as he’d never known another person, and he would take as much as he could in return, even if it meant fantasizing about hot nights under a tent barely big enough for two, spending hours and hours filling each other up to the brim.

Nothing ever happened. Nothing _could_ have ever happened. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest environment for a relationship, especially between ranking officers. Nothing could have happened afterwards, either, because then James was nearly blown up and blamed for dozens of deaths, and a month later John was shot in the shoulder, and the fates decided that whatever _it_ was wasn’t in the stars for them. And then they both were definitively, irrevocably, wholly messed up beyond repair.

John Watson has been in love twice before in his entire life, and each time ended in disaster.

His brain keeps trying to add on an asterisk with a (3x) noted at the bottom, but he pretends he can’t hear it.


	2. two

  _Caught up in circles_  
_Confusion is nothing new_  
_Flashback, warm nights_  
_Almost left behind_  
_Suitcases of memories,  
__Time after…_

[“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yKwYaq5Kf4&index=6&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg)

 

*** * ***

 

The following morning, Sherlock’s making breakfast. He does that after disagreements, usually as a way to apologize, which makes John feel even more guilty; yesterday was Sherlock defending himself against a bombardment of questions, totally blameless. John vows to buy dinner tonight.

Sherlock turns his head and nods John towards the table, where there’s already tea brewing and applesauce ready on the highchair. John sets Rosie all up with a bib and a spoon, and lets her go wild.

“Thank you,” he says. Sherlock hums in response.

It’s a hit or a miss, whether Sherlock’s breakfasts are edible (John thinks back to the Cinnamon-Soil Mishap with a frown), but the eggs smell delicious and completely free of chemicals (or dirt), so he’ll take his chances. He sits down at the table, takes a sip of tea, and opens the newspaper.

“So,” Sherlock begins slowly.

John glances up to where Sherlock’s still facing the stove. “So,” he replies.

“Do you have…” Sherlock clears his throat. “Do you have anything to tell me?”

John blinks, taken aback. Did he? There hasn’t been a case in weeks, and the few days he _does_ actually work at the clinic doesn’t include Sundays. He hasn’t accidentally ruined one of Sherlock’s expensive shirts in the wash, not lately. “I’m sorry for yesterday?” He tries.

Sherlock turns around, dressing gown almost falling off a shoulder and hair disheveled and one hand armed with a wooden spoon, the other clothed in an oven mit. It’s much more adorable than it has any right to be. “No, no, not that,” he says quickly. He points the spoon in John’s direction vaguely, like a fencing sword. “Yesterday. You… You said that there were. Erm. Things. That you needed to work through. Before you could tell me. Did you…?”

John curses silently. “Oh. That.” He can feel his ears going red, and he prays that Sherlock can’t see from the distance. “Um. No. Not yet. I’ll… keep you posted.” He winces to himself.

Sherlock nods, almost purposefully casual, and turns back to the stove. John hides his face behind the newspaper, and sees that Rosie’s currently gotten the applesauce everywhere but in her mouth. He wills the conversation out of his mind.

“These things…” Sherlock starts again, prompting John to lower the paper once more with a stifled grumble. Sherlock’s facing him again, cheekbones flushed, but that could just be from the steam. He keeps his eyes up somewhere closer to the ceiling than the table. “Is there… That is, would you say that there’s a specific subject matter?”

“I’d imagine,” John says shortly. “I suppose you’ll see when the time comes, won’t you?”

“Right, right,” Sherlock agrees, spinning back around to the eggs. John snaps open the paper pointedly and tries to throw himself into the business section, despite having absolutely no interest in the stocks and investments flying around the globe. When Sherlock starts back up again, it’s really no surprise.

“Are you-”

John throws down the newspaper with a sigh, twining his fingers together instead and staring him down. “Am I what, Sherlock?”

Sherlock takes one look at him, and mildly turns back around. “Nevermind.”

John stifles a sound that’s half-groan, half-laugh, and leans over to help Rosie with her breakfast.

 

*** * ***

 

The guitar Sherlock’s bought is beautiful, really, even to someone who’s never had much of an interest. It’s currently propped up against the left window, mirroring the violin’s corner to the right, and the mid-morning light catches the dust in the air that drifts against its glossy veneer. The wood is a reddish color just between light and dark, and is riddled with knots as though it were carved directly from a tree trunk. John brushes his hand over the first fret’s line, not hard enough to make a sound but enough to feel the strings give.

Molly had just come by to take Rosie for one of their Sunday morning strolls through the park, and Sherlock had offered to help Rosie into the pram. Their friendship, though broken (understandably) from the events months ago, came back rather easily in the aftermath. Rosie being the peace offering between them definitely helped, and neither him nor his daughter minded.

Footsteps thunder up the stairs, and John jerks his hand back to his side as if from an open flame. When Sherlock comes in, slightly winded, he takes one look and quirks his lips. “Would you like to play it?”

“No,” John replies truthfully. He leans over it to look out the window, to where Molly and Rosie are crossing the street. “Painless?”

“Nearly.”

“Hm.” John steps off to the side to perch on the desk, studying the flat; without his daughter here, it seems much too big and much too empty. He raps his knuckles on the tabletop and looks back to Sherlock. “I’d like to hear you play it, though.”

Sherlock obviously wants to refuse, any number of excuses seeming to run through his head, but he only bites his lip and brushes past towards the window. He hesitates slightly before picking up the guitar and rounding around to his chair. John follows. When they’re both settled, Sherlock’s hands hover over the instrument, like he’s never touched one before and has no idea what he’s supposed to do. “I’m… out of practice,” he says awkwardly.

John furrows his brow. “You haven’t played it yet?”

“Only a few chords at the shop, against my will.” He pulls out a guitar pick from thin air, apparently, and runs it along the strings in a gentle strum. “G major,” he murmurs.

“If you can play that song from _Frozen_ , Rosie would be your best friend.”

“‘Let It Go’?” Sherlock asks, and then visibly grimaces. “I abhor the fact that I know its name.”

John snickers, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. “I’m sure you could recite it word for word, the amount of times she’s made you suffer through it.”

“ _You_ could clock in for a shift, once in awhile,” he mutters darkly.

“I get nappies, you get _Frozen_ duty,” John says, wagging a finger in his direction. “That’s the agreement.”

Sherlock huffs and plays his major chords even louder.

They sound like a married couple, John realizes with a jolt. It wipes the smile from his face, but Sherlock doesn’t even notice, head ducked to watch himself finger out the correct patterns. John feels his heart throb once, painfully. It should be more bittersweet than it really is, should remind him of the domesticity he’d had with his dead wife with a much harsher potency. It doesn’t. It’s been happening for months, after all; the only difference is how long it took for him to notice. Warmth fills his abdomen, like a jug of sunlight spilling over and topping him up.

_‘There’s a reason. I can’t… I can’t say why, yet. Can’t tell you exactly. Not until I can come to terms with it myself’._

John swallows. “Any songs stored away up in that brain?” He says to change the subject. “Something I’d recognize?”

Sherlock’s none the wiser concerning John’s thoughts, for once. “No,” he replies, and then immediately cocks his head and says, “Well, maybe.”

He starts up strumming, knee gently bopping to an invisible metronome. It’s a bit rough, but a guitar can get away with any woody sounds, unlike the violin. His fingers on the fretboard are, frankly, mesmerizing. The chords aren’t basic anymore, something more personable and evocative, flush with an unfamiliar feeling, broad without any specific notes to carry on a melody. His lips are pressed together, eyes mirthful, as if trying to hide a smile. Coy. It takes John much too long to recognize the music.

“The first song you play for me,” John deadpans, “and it’s [Wonderwall.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__xH4YdIwBI&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg&index=2) Fantastic. What year am I in?”

Sherlock barks out a laugh. “Let off,” he jokes, still playing. “The phase was during the summer of ‘95, and MTV was very impressionable.” He tries to pull off something with a finger-strung melody, and winces when he’s unsuccessful.

“I was in medical school in ‘95,” John muses.

“Deployed in 2001,” he murmurs, and then blushes. “I haven’t, er, invaded any privacy or anything of the like, of course. Simple deduction.”

John rolls his eyes at the transparency. “Sherlock. I know you, and I know your brother. There’s a file over me hidden away in one of these bookshelves, I’m aware, and I stopped minding it long ago.”

“Behind the fridge,” Sherlock corrects.

“As I was _saying_ ,” John says, purposefully ignoring that little tidbit, “I was in med school, you were in your last year of secondary, presumably. Just wondering, is all. If we had met then.”

The guitar trails off into something lighter, the pick being replaced instead by the gentle plucking of his fingertips. Sherlock studies John. “You were more aggressive,” he decides, “while inversely being more carefree, more willing to let the world happen around you. An odd combination. I was much more insufferable than I already am, back in the day; a meeting would have ended in either a curious friendship or a bloody nose on my part.”

John likes to pretend it would’ve been the former, but he’s not too sure. “You’re not insufferable,” he says instead. “I’m still here, after all. I _want_ to be here. With you.”

 _After years of being stubbornly apart,_ he thinks, but to Sherlock’s credit he only inclines his head. “That’s probably the kindest compliment you’ve given me yet,” he says, a small smile curving at his lips. The saddest part being that he likely means it.

John sighs. “That just means I’ll have to try harder, then, won’t I?”

 

*** * ***

 

Rosamund has Mary’s nose and ears, thank god. It’s hard to tell at this age, but she seems to have John’s overall bone structure, short and stocky, and her thick eyelashes surround dark blue eyes the exact same color as his. Somehow, in some impossible, wonderful way, she has a faint cupid’s bow reminiscent of Sherlock’s, as well as a mole dotting her neck in the same place. When John kisses her atop the head, the wispy curls that brush his nose are much too similar to the ones he sees on someone a good bit taller, and several shades the wrong color. He’s immensely grateful that his brain searches for these similarities, rather than mourn the ones with his late wife, and he’s also not at all surprised. He’s spent nearly eight years finding Sherlock in everything he sees; he’s not going to stop now.

 

*** * ***

 

Weeks roll by, all alike in their monotony. The only difference that stands between them all is that instead of the violin, during sleepless nights the soothing sound of the acoustic guitar drifts up the stairs, gentle and fluid like a river. Sherlock never sings. _‘His name was Benjamin, and he liked to sing’,_ John remembers, and figures that it’s a subject better left untouched.

It’s been nearly a month since their last (worthwhile) case. The feeling in the flat is… tense. But familiar. _This_ Sherlock, after all, John has years of experience with.

Not even an antique’s fair could save them now. They’re bored enough that only arguments (John) and explosive experiments (obvious) give them any sort of entertainment. Rosie’s picked up on the tension, and has decided to wake John up screaming at two in the morning for the past four nights in a row. Daily strolls are the only things keeping his sanity together, and Sherlock is _this_ close to responding to the ‘cheating spouse’ cases that litter his email. A distraction is needed. Badly.

Fortunately, on one mid-October morning, Sherlock’s mobile rings a familiar ringtone. He immediately taps it on speaker and drops it unceremoniously to John’s lap.

“I’ve got something for you both,” Lestrade says, voice crackling through the receiver. “Sorry, Sherlock, I know the serial killers have decided to take a bit of a break recently. Hopefully this makes up for it.”

In a normal world, a detective-inspector wouldn’t be apologetic about the lack of murder going on in Greater London. As it is, Sherlock’s vibrating with excitement and only urges him to continue.

“We found a body off the southern bank of the Brent Reservoir, been here awhile and not in the most recognizable of shapes. We can’t make heads or tails with it. How fast can you get here?”

Sherlock nearly barks out a response, but then pauses. He glances at John, and then at Rosie, where she’s twirling around in her favorite toy, and then seems to shut down, utterly lost and biting at his lip as if he’s trying to gnaw it off. He’s hesitating. With a sigh, John takes Lestrade off speaker and holds the phone up to his ear.

“He’ll be there in 15 minutes,” John says, batting Sherlock’s hands away when he tries to grab back the phone. “Yeah, alright, Greg. Yes. I- no, I’m on babysitting duty. Right. Thanks, he’ll see you soon.” He hangs up and tosses the phone to the other man’s chest. “I’m fine, Sherlock. I don’t need to go on _every_ case, honestly.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock grumbles, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He stands up, facing his reflection in the mirror over the mantle to straighten his clothes, as if he wasn’t already (annoyingly) impeccable. “Why don’t you just ask Mrs. Hudson to babysit? She’s made it clear that she’s always available.”

John rolls his eyes. “Just because she says ‘anytime’ doesn’t mean that I’m free to unload my daughter at a moment’s notice. She needs some warning, at least.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at his reflection. “Compromise.”

“Pardon?”

He twirls around, stepping up and over his chair in the direction of the kitchen. “Compromise,” he says again, louder, rummaging around the table until he finds his pocket magnifying glass. “You like those. You’ve proven time and time again that you’re an asset at a crime scene, enough so that I can admit we’re more fruitful together than if I’m alone. If I can’t solve this case within the hour, _then_ will you join me? I’m sure that’ll give Mrs. Hudson enough ‘warning’.”

John rolls his eyes, but Sherlock doesn’t even spare him a glance, already bouncing in his shoes like it’s Christmas. “Sherlock-”

“I’ll let Mrs. Hudson know to prepare herself.”

“Ominous,” John mutters, but Sherlock only winks and snatches his coat, ruffling it behind him like a great big cape as he disappears through the front door. The stairs echo with his footsteps, as if he’s dropping down them three at a time. John has to remind himself that his flatmate is only _slightly_ more mature than Rosie. He isn’t expecting a text message, really; Sherlock’s solved manycases without his help before, and he seems to be on the top of his game today, fueled by the past month of inactivity. John settles in for a quiet evening.

Forty-five minutes later, his phone vibrates.

‘Victim killed by poisonous gas. Covered in a thin film of concentrated chlorine. College student, Lestrade matched him up to a missing person’s case a few weeks back. I found his old flat. Coming? -SH’

John sighs, but he’s already scooping up Rosie and stuffing his feet into his shoes in one move, just barely managing not to topple them both over. “Mrs. Hudson!” He calls, making sure he has his keys and hiking Rosie up further his side. In his other hand, he’s tapping out a reply.

‘Address?’

 

*** * ***

 

It was the landlord. Lestrade thanks them distractedly, promising John a pub trip soon and Sherlock a nice, juicy murder for his help. It’s nearly midnight when they leave.

In the cab ride back home, where John’s hand is splayed on the middle seat, Sherlock slides his own over to press their pinkies together. John looks over to where the lights of London alight his skin, pale throat peaking through his open collar and against the curve of his jawline. John wants to know if that skin is cool from the chilly autumn air, or warm instead.  

Sherlock’s steadily watching him back. Something’s growing between them, John’s acutely aware, nearly a decade in the making but only recently gaining awareness, and moreso poignancy. Like years of build-up coming to a fruition, a dam after a flood that’s been aching to break. He doesn’t know how much more water it can take before something gives, and what happens then? If this _thing_ doesn’t work out, what’ll they do? They’ve both lost so much. John can swallow down these feelings for the rest of his life, if need be; lord knows he’s had the practice.

He opens his mouth, closes it, and clenches the fist in his lap. Sherlock relaxes everything but the line between his brows and leans his head against his headrest, sliding his gaze out towards the front windshield, as if he can read the thoughts swarming between them like they were on a page. John sighs and closes his eyes.

Their hands never move away, or closer. It's simultaneously 'enough' and 'too little' and John wants to drown beneath it all. 

 

*** * ***

 

It starts on a Thursday morning while John’s making pancakes for three.

At first, he thinks it’s the telly, sounding out amidst Rosie’s giggling and the occasional cadence of Sherlock’s teachings. He’s taken to reciting the elements of the periodic table over and over to her, in hopes of sparking her inner scientist early, to no avail. But then, as John turns off the stove, he realizes exactly what he’s hearing and sneaks to the doorway to take an incredulous peak.

Rosie’s sitting on the floor in front of Sherlock’s armchair, head tilted back and owlish eyes wide. The taller man is occupying said chair, guitar perched in his lap at he quietly plays, chords spattered with single finger plucks. He’s hunched over, not quite to her level but enough to meet her eyes.

“ _Fly me to the moon,”_ he sings softly, fair and lilting. His foot is keeping rhythm. _“Let me play among the stars.”_

John’s heart is trying to claw its way out of his chest. Sherlock sings a whole octave higher than his speaking voice, not a falsetto but something warmer and sweeter, at the very top of his chest. _“Let me see what spring is like,”_ he continues, lips curved in a smile, _“On Jupiter and Mars.”_

The doorway creaks when John sags against it. When Sherlock suddenly realizes he’s watching, his expression drops and the music clips off with a dissonant twang. “I, er, John,” he says quickly. He clears his throat. “I didn’t think you could hear me,” he continues, looking oddly embarrassed, as if caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

Well, that’s just not on.

Making up his mind, John swoops in, apron and all, to gather Rosie into his arms. She squeals while he swings her back and forth, her feet dangling as they dance in an almost cartoonish version of the waltz. _“In other words,”_ John sings dramatically, slowly, prompting Sherlock to hesitantly begin playing again, _“Hold my hand.”_

Rosie’s practically screaming in delight. John dips her until she’s nearly upside down, hand cradling her head. _“In other words,”_ he coos, _“Darling, kiss me.”_

“No!” She cries, batting him away while John bombards her with smacking kisses. The music falters again, and John glances up. Sherlock’s looking at him in a way he never has before, like how John knows he himself looked that day in that little café off Camden’s Passage, when his feelings for the man (whatever they may be) threatened to crash over him like the murky Atlantic. John’s tired of losing himself in his confusing, anxiety-ridden thoughts over it all, so he instead just grins.

“You should be scared,” he says. “You’re next.”

Sherlock blinks back to the present, and immediately picks back up his strumming, almost instinctually. Before the next verse, he smirks, but the pinkness of his cheeks betrays him. “I’m betting on it.”

 

 _Fill my life with song_  
_And let me sing for ever more_  
_You are all I long for_  
_All I worship and adore_  
_In other words, please be true_ _  
In other words..._

[“Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP3AGhjg5g8&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg&index=3)

 

*** * ***

 

After what happened in Sherrinford, John is the first to visit Molly, bringing Rosie as an excuse. Not a very good excuse, given that both his daughter and her godmother positively adore each other, but it’s a pretense that Molly seems to appreciate nonetheless.

“Hi, John,” she greets, smile not quite reaching her eyes. Rosie leans out of John’s arms towards her, and John motions for Molly to take her. She does, gently. “I wasn’t expecting you to visit. Not that I… it’s, um. A pleasure. If I knew, I would have…”

“Don’t worry about it, Molly,” John says, closing the door behind them and setting the diaper bag by the table. Molly’s smile is already a bit more genuine with his daughter in her arms, if still guarded, her thin hand running through Rosie’s curls to brush them out. “We had some free time,” John continues, “And my babysitter has nearly burned his eyebrows off at Bart’s, so we thought we’d pop by while he sorts himself out.”

“Is he…” She nervously glances back to the door.

John mentally chides himself for bringing him up, but it was bound to happen eventually. “No, no. He’s back at ho- well, that is. At Baker street.”

“Home,” she says softly. She tilts her head, not quite meeting his eyes. “Sorry. I just mean, you haven’t… moved back in yet?”

“Ah. No. I don’t think we will be, either. Things are different now.”

After a beat, she nods and sits at her armchair, setting Rosie on her thighs and supporting her back. John follows to the couch, and when the silence begins to get uncomfortable, he takes a deep breath and says, tentatively: “Molly, I’m sorry for everything that happened. Sherlock’s sorry, too, I promise. It’s not… It’s just, we didn’t have any choice. If it weren’t life-and-death…”

“Greg explained,” she says quickly, thankfully cutting John off before he can ramble on some more. “Not very well, but I understood the gist.” She finally meets his eyes, her brows curved in worry. “Are you alright, John? Is everyone alright?”

“Ma!” Rosie gurgles. They both pretend that she’s trying to say ‘Molly’. John clears his throat, sliding his palms up and down his jean-clad thighs.

“We will be,” he decides on. She nods again, and the silence returns, at least for a bit.

“I don’t, you know,” she finally says, eyes drawn to her feet. “Love him. Not anymore, not after this. I used to, I think, but I. Well, that is to say, he and I… he never, and I was being…”  She’s getting worked up, a flush creeping up her neck.

“Hey, hey,” John says consolingly. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Molly. Really.”

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, cheek twitching when she presses her lips together. “But, I sort of do,” she says, “Don’t I?”

“What’s that?”

Molly sighs quietly, and lets Rosie play with her hair without even so much of a wince. She seems to be mustering up the courage for this next part. “Can you… tell me, John? Exactly what happened? Before…” Her voice falls flat.

John starts in surprise. He wasn’t expecting her to want the specifics, and he finds himself wholly unwilling to reexperience it all himself. “Are you sure? I don’t remember any of it too well.”

“Please? If it’s okay.”

He’s not a strong soul when he’s faced with ‘please’, no matter the person, so he takes a deep breath, steels himself, and begins. He’s a natural storyteller, truth be told, so it’s not very difficult to fall into the clown chase, the patience grenade, the piratical thieving of a fishing boat, even to the shutter island rip-off that was Sherrinford.

But when he gets to the conversation right before the phone call, with Sherlock’s deductions towards the coffin, something gives. “He said that the coffin belonged to someone unmarried, living on their own, practical, used to death, all that. Someone rather short, I think it was 5’4”, maybe? And then a few inches, accounting for headroom.” He rolls his eyes. “Sherlock thought it was unnecessary, the git. Having headroom. He’s not wrong, as we both know that the dead don’t quibble about a tight fit, but still. After that, he...”

And that’s when Molly squeaks. She widens her eyes and stiffens in her seat, as if she’d just solved the equation that’s been on her whiteboard for years. She starts blinking quickly in a very Sherlockian fashion, so much so that John has to trail off in worry.

“Headroom,” she breathes. And then she huffs out something resembling a laugh, until she’s outright smiling. John’s never seen her this excited, and wouldn’t have dreamed of her lighting up like the sun after seeing her meekly open the front door earlier, when he and Rosie had first arrived.

“Molly?” he asks, unsettled.

She shakes her head, hugging Rosie to her chest as she lets out another huff. “I thought it didn’t make sense, really.” She blinks up at John, controlling the squirming baby in her lap. “You need to ask him, John. If you and Rosie can move back into 221.”

“I need to…?” John shakes his head, feeling perpetually in a state of confusion at this point. Where did that even _come_ from? “I don’t think, I mean, he wouldn’t-”

“Humor me. Please,” she pushes. Her eyes are oddly bright.

“I’ll… think about it,” he lies, half-heartedly. She smiles again, seemingly satisfied, and coos something to Rosie that has his daughter giggling. He desperately wants to leave. What with Molly’s sudden mood change and her thorough knowledge of the human body (and its insides), he’s not willing to take any chances. Besides, there’s no way in _hell_ that he’s asking Sherlock if he can move back in, not after… well, _everything._ John’s not even sure he’d say yes. No, there’s no chance that they’re living together again, unfortunately, not unless Sherlock asks them to himself. John scoffs at the thought.

As it turns out, two weeks later, that’s exactly what happens, over dinner with Sherlock’s voice stuttering and cheeks aflame. John’s hiding such a tremendous grin, he nearly forgets to say, emphatically, _‘yes’._

 

*** * ***

 

_“Nobody said it was easy… It's such a shame for us to part.”_

“Sherlock? I’m home, is that you?”

_“Nobody said it was easy… No one ever said it would be this hard.”_

“Oh, you’re... That’s nice. It sounds familiar.”

 _“Oh, take me back to the start._ Hello, John. Did you pick up my toenail beds from Bart’s?”

“Reluctantly, yes. That song, it’s [Coldplay,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllKLAiLo6g&index=5&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg) isn’t it?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“ _Have I -_ yes, Sherlock, I’ve heard of Coldplay. I’m more amazed that you have.”

“Why does everyone think I’m some sort of hermit holed up since the nineteenth century, avoiding technology like the plague? I listen to contemporary music, John, and sometimes I even _enjoy_ it. The horror!”

“Sherlock, you’re the one who spreads those rumors yourself. You curse the radio whenever it’s playing.”

“Oh, right.”

“So you like Coldplay, then?”

“I like any songs about scientists, John, regardless of the artist. This one happens to fit the bill. See, it’s right there in the title.”

“I think it’s more metaphorical than-”

_“I was just guessing at numbers and figures, pulling the puzzles apart…”_

“That’s-”

_“Questions of science, science and progress…”_

“... Alright, alright, fair point. Rosie napping?”

“Upstairs.”

“I’ll let her be. I’m enjoying the show, after all.”

“She’ll be awhile, I just changed her nappy and put her down. You owe me a _Frozen_ watchalong, by the way. Owe her, rather.”

“Can I switch it out for _Toy Story_ instead? I rather like that one.”

“Hm. I’ll have to negotiate it with the boss, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. She’s a true tyrant.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“...”

“...”

_“... Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me. Oh, and I rush to the start…”_

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“Are you serenading me?”

“I don’t know. Is it working?’

“I don’t know. Play it again.”

 

*** * ***

 

Occasionally, John goes into work. It’s not _technically_ work anymore, considering he doesn’t let Sarah even pay him, but when he starts feeling useless and one of the resident doctors is out, the clinic is more than happy for the help. Today is one of those days, somewhere at the end of November, and Sherlock’s already shooing him away with Rosie scrambling in his arms.

“You need work like I need cases,” he rationalizes, t-shirt hem choking as Rosie attempts to climb him like King Kong. “If you go without it for too long, you’re an absolute horror to live with. Off with you!”

John _tsk_ s under his breath, but kisses his daughter’s cheek in farewell and barely refrains from doing the same to the man holding her. “Off with me, then.”

Later, when John gets home, it’s to a scene he isn’t quite expecting. Sherlock’s on the couch, holding the guitar oddly, while Rosie’s standing on the cushion beside him and hitting at the strings, barely managing a tangible strum. Sherlock’s hand is running along the neck of the guitar, making the notes that she attempts to play. It’s like a picture out of a storybook, just so unbelievably sweet. John’s grinning ear-to-ear when Sherlock looks up. “Good afternoon.”

When Rosie notices him standing in the doorway, she shimmies down the sofa to toddle excitedly over to him. “Da!” She cries, pushing herself against John’s shins with her arms reaching up expectantly. John laughs and swings her up, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Hello, my love. Did you have a nice day with Sherlock?”

She makes a happy noise, not quite a ‘yes’ but heavily implied. She starts kicking, so John sets her back down, to where she tilts over off her feet and attempts to untie his shoelaces. “Everything go well?” He asks Sherlock, and the man nods in reply. John motions his chin to the guitar with a smile. “Collaboration?”

Sherlock shrugs, but he looks pleased with himself. “She was interested. Who am I to ignore a curious mind?”

Rosie’s successful with one shoe, so John takes the hint and slides them both off. He stretches, feeling his spine pleasantly crack and tight muscles loosen, and he runs a hand through his hair to try and push it back into place, to no avail. He’s debating on getting it cut back into his usual style. He starts towards his laptop, intent on checking his email, but Sherlock clears his throat before he can.

“Would you…” He shifts a bit, hesitantly, angling out the body of the guitar to give room. His eyes flicker away. “Would you like to try?”

Oh. John will regret this. John will _definitely_ regret this. He takes in a great big breath to clear his head, then releases it, and finds that it didn’t help in the slightest. “... Sure.”

Sherlock scoots over some more. John slides next to him, and finds himself having to sit closer to support the body of the instrument in a way that isn’t uncomfortable. They’re pressed along their arms and thighs, Sherlock’s other hand on the fretboard, and they’re very purposefully avoiding direct eye-contact, the heat stifling between their clothes and buzzing as if they’d been set on vibrate. Rosie’s tottering around the sitting room, paying them no mind.

They’ve touched before. They’ve even _embraced_ before. So why, John thinks as a bead of sweat sprouts under his hairline, is this any different?

“Hook your right arm around it, like that. Here,” Sherlock hands him a pick. “And then… right. Just start strumming, I suppose. Not too hard or it’ll sound harsh.”

One strum along the strings, the chord Sherlock’s made something slightly blue. John tries again, from the bottom this time, and feels a smile tugging at his lips when the result is actually pleasant. He’s never been much of a musician, save for a year as last chair playing clarinet, but he can see the appeal, now. “I like it. ‘S nice.”

Sherlock hums, and shifts impossibly closer. “It’s simple,” he says, almost like an admission. “I still prefer the violin whenever it comes to composing, but this is new. Akin to ambient noise, clearing my mind more than prompting it to think. It’s… different.”

John tries picking individual strings. “Composing,” he muses. “Have you ever written anything on the guitar?”

He rearranges himself, perching further forward on the cushion. “Collaboration,” he says drily.

 _Benjamin._ Right. Before John can hurriedly change the subject, Sherlock slides the arm that’s pressed between them up and over the body of the guitar, so that his hand is ghosting over the strings beside John’s. “I’ll show you one.”

John is about to object, but Sherlock cuts him off. “Down down down,” he says evenly, prompting John to follow his lead with the pick. Sherlock himself isn’t touching the strings, instead only miming along with his words. “ _Down,_ with emphasis, then up. Down down down _down_ up down… and again.”

John follows the direction clumsily, the strings twanging when he hits them wrong, but it doesn’t bother them any. It’s strange, hearing the notes change without warning, but Sherlock’s staying with his horrid rhythm just fine, his chord changes smooth and clean. His knee brushes John’s, keeping the semblance of time, and he worms his arm back to his side.

 _“My darling, you and I,”_ he sings, sweetly, _“Can take over the world. One step at a time,[just you and I.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFblw8Myyy8&index=4&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg) _ Cliché, I know. But we were, as in, he was just-”

“-a kid in love.” John sighs. “I understand.”

Sherlock scoffs. “Hardly. We never even… Only the most generous of definitions could call what we had even a ‘relationship’. Love was never in the equation for him.”

“And for you?”

His lower lip wavers, but it’s schooled immediately. “A dangerous chemical,” he finally says.

John makes a mental promise to punch Mycroft in the nose the next time he sees him. As it is, he nudges the detective as he strums, the rhythm aimless and vague, now. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, ignoring Sherlock’s snort. “About what you said, a few months back. If we had met whenever we were younger. I think that… I would’ve liked you. Even if you were a git, like whenever we first met, because we’re still together years later. Somehow. Er, point is. I don’t think there’s a certain age we could’ve met at, or a certain place, or even a certain circumstance that wouldn’t have eventually brought us right here. Where we… are supposed to be.”

He tilts his head to meet Sherlock’s eye, at least peripherally, and finds their faces much, much too close. It’s commonly known, both among doctors and the regular folk, that whenever it comes to the eyes, the peripheral vision is much more acute and useful during the night. To notice the stars in the night sky, you should look where there aren't any, and find the specks that appear all around your line of sight. Here, in the late afternoon sun streaming through the flat, John finds that it’s true now, too. That he doesn’t have to focus to see the laugh lines, the cupid’s bow, the little brown fleck in one eye, all in perfect detail.

Sherlock swallows. “John,” he murmurs, his baritone caressing the name like silk. John can feel that voice, too-deep and rich, in his bones through the flesh and muscles that they’re connected by. His breath brushes his cheek. “Are you ready to tell me? That… something?”

John’s not even surprised by the question. He runs the pick down the strings slowly, quietly, in one final chord, and shakes his head just barely. “No,” he replies. “Not yet. But almost.”

It’s still for a Moment. And then there’s a pressure on his shoulder, soft and warm like a closed mouth. “Okay.”


	3. three

_ “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”  _

John’s never had an inclination for the classics, but he’d always moderately enjoyed them in school, things like Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_ and Fitzgerald’s _Gatsby_ and anything by the Brontë sisters in particular, like the romantic sop he is. _The Importance of Being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde was forced upon him in his mandatory theater class along with the role of ‘Jack Worthing’, but he had loved it beyond words. In another life, perhaps, he’d have been an actor. 

_ “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life,” _ Wilde says. That quote had always poured warmth into his stomach, for reasons he never quite knew until he understood exactly what Gwendolyn meant by saying it. If he could, he’d tattoo the quote onto his soul for the world to see - for one person to see, in particular. 

He’s not sure if that makes him brave or a coward. 

 

*** * ***

 

There have been Moments. There have always been Moments, as far as John is aware, and as is the way of the world, there will keep being Moments up until the end of time. 

A particular Moment that stands out, for example, involves the Outing That Need Not Be Mentioned (John has a habit of emphasizing the landmarks in his own mind palace with Capital Letters). Or, to the layman, John’s stag night. More specifically, the last thirty minutes of it. 

_ “You checked him out!”  _

Sherlock’s already flushing, and the pulsating neon glow around them definitely gives a valiant (but futile) effort in hiding the fact. They are currently nursing their graduated-cylinders’-worth of drinks in this rainbow-fond establishment, and many of the patrons passing by the bar have never heard of modesty, it seems.  _ “Did not!”  _

_ “Yes you did!”  _ John guffaws, almost falling off his feet. He shoves Sherlock’s shoulder playfully.  _ “Didn’t know blokes with blue hair were your type!” _

_ “Not my type,”  _ he mutters, shrugging John off with slow movements. 

_ “Oh?”  _ John leans forward, dangerously.  _ “What’s your type, then?” _

Sherlock finishes the rest of his drink and then closes his eyes and hums for a long moment, as if he’s savoring the too-sweetness on his tongue. His eyes, when they open, are fuzzy and soft and as clumsy as his feet are, right now.  _ “I don’t have one,”  _ he says slowly, and his eyebrows draw together, like he’s confused by his answer.  _ “Am I supposed to?” _

John giggles.  _ “No, no,”  _ he says, waving his hand like he’s smacking at a fly, and his own drink sloshes out onto his hand.  _ “But you  _ did  _ check him out. Don’t deny it.” _

Sherlock only looks at him, blurry around the edges, and completely ignores the bait. “ _ My type,”  _ he repeats. He puts a hand on John’s shoulder, as if to steady himself, but it only brings him close enough for John to feel his exhale, to smell his sweat, to see the drowsy pull of his pupils that seem to suck away the pale luminescence of his iris like a black hole.

Drunk. John’s never seen Sherlock drunk, and if  _ this  _ is what he’s like… They only touch by Sherlock’s hand braced on his shoulder, but his nerves are ablaze and his tongue is thick and he’s both hot and cold at once.  _ “Checked him out,”  _ John says again, and suddenly it’s of utmost importance for Sherlock to either confirm or deny it.

A damp curl drapes over Sherlock’s forehead, like he’s bloody Clark Kent, or Superman, one of them, and it shines the purples and blues and pinks that flash around them. Before John can think twice about it, he reaches up and pushes it back into place, with the others, and runs his hands through his hair and down his nape and further, further, past collarbones until his fingers are pressed into the left side of his rib cage.

_ “Home,”  _ John says, a small, still-sober part of his brain screaming at him to stop, before this moment turns into a Moment. Or has it already?  _ “We… I need to go home.” _

Sherlock watches him, his eyes full of unabashed fondness. Is that the wrong word? Full of something soft and lovely, rather. John’s never seen eyes quite like that before. Sherlock moves his hand from John’s shoulder down his arm, so it covers the one against his side. 

They stare, and John sways closer, and Sherlock swallows, and John follows the line of his throat that’s somehow gotten a speck of glitter on it, right on the Adam’s apple. He...  _ really _ considers it, before he can think about what ‘it’ he’s considering, but he knows that for the rush of excitement it brings him, with it comes an almost-equal guilt. He drops his hand. 

_ “So I can get back to Mary.”  _ He emphasizes the last part. “ _ To my _ fiancée.” 

Sherlock jolts and blinks back to the present, as if he were halfway across London and just found himself in this bar, right now, plucked and dropped from the sky. His jaw works around invisible words, and he hurriedly takes a giant step back until they’re a respectable distance apart, eyes wide and disorientated and utterly… lost.  John hates the space between them, almost as much as he hates himself. 

_ “Right,”  _ Sherlock says in confusion, brow furrowed and skin more green than pink.  _ “Right.”  _

John doesn’t remember this Moment until weeks later, while he’s making a sandwich for himself and Sherlock’s arse over tits in a drug den, unbeknownst to him. The memory is so severe, so unwanted, he promptly sticks his head in the freezer until he stops thinking altogether.  

 

*** * ***

 

_ And all at once you pull away  _ __   
_ But I'm lost within your atmosphere _ __   
_ As quickly as you found me _ __   
_ I panic as you try to disappear _ __   
_... _ _   
_ __ And I just want to speak

[“Speak” by Ben Abraham](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OiX7k6dbtE&index=9&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg&t=0s)

 

*** * ***

 

“Happy New Years Eve, doctor,” Mycroft greets primly, damn umbrella swinging from where it’s looped around his wrist. Snow litters his hair and soaks the welcome mat, though the partygoers have already tracked it into 221B enough for it to be negligible. Mycroft cocks his head. “How’s your knee, by the way? I noticed that you tripped outside of the clinic last Wednesday.”

John sighs. “And Happy Holidays to you,  _ Big Brother.” _

“Oh, it’s official now, isn’t it? When’s the wedding?” His smile is unnerving as he gracefully disrobes his outer coat. John wants to throttle him. Sherlock takes the coat from him with a too-wide smile, leaning out the door to toss it right back out onto the landing. 

“Mycroft,” he greets cheerily. 

“Sherlock.” Mycroft rolls his eyes, but turns back around to fetch his coat with as much dignity he can muster. “I always  _ did  _ want a little brother,” he says over his shoulder. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Sherlock says. “He just hasn’t had his sugar allowance for the day. He gets cranky.” 

Before John can reply, Mycroft returns, coat draped over his forearm and the twinkle in his eye dangerous. “You’re quite correct, I haven’t reached my day-to-day quota as of yet.” And then he glances down Sherlock’s body purposefully, narrowing his eyes on the midsection before flashing a smirk. “But it looks as though  _ you  _ have. Domestic life suits you.” 

He strides away. John nearly has to restrain Sherlock from stomping after him. 

“Arse,” Sherlock mutters. He glances down his body, to his standard black trousers and royal blue button-down. He peers up at John self-consciously. “He’s… he’s wrong, right? I haven’t...?”

“No,” John immediately assures, not even having to check. He could draw his likeness onto a canvas by memory at this point. “You’re still thin as a rail. Your brother’s just trying to get under your skin, successfully I might add.”

Sherlock scowls, but does an inconspicuous shimmy in place, little more than a shuffle in his step but preening nonetheless. He’s done that since the very first day John’s known him, and it’s comforting that he’s still the same man from before, as hard as it is to believe sometimes. Sherlock straightens his shoulders an inch taller. “Well. Thank you. I didn’t know if this shirt was ‘festive’ enough.”

“No, it’s perfectly fine. I like that one the most, it’s really a lovely shade.” John clears his throat. “Nice color, rather.”

Sherlock cocks his head, a near-reptilian move. “I thought the purple one was your favorite?” 

John flushes. It’s not as though he’s  _ wrong.  _ Sherlock could be wearing a Victorian gown complete with a white powder wig, and he would still look infuriatingly dashing. Shaking himself, he says, “I think I just heard Rosie calling for me, actually, so I’ll just…”

Sherlock harrumphs, eyes narrowing, but he turns back to the front door just in time to let Mrs. Hudson kiss him on the cheek. 

John narrowly escapes. It’s been over three months since he confessed to… well, intending to confess, and it’s all just so achingly childish. He’s ready to put an end to it, in one way or another. And, to be honest, he doesn’t even admit to his  _ bloody therapist _ that he feels something for Sherlock beyond the bounds of friendship, so how the hell can he expect to tell the man himself? Where does that leave him? 

In an eternal limbo filled with high blood pressure, apparently. He sighs, and when he finds his daughter (who he  _ did  _ hear, thank you very much), it’s in the most unlikely of arms. 

“Sally,” he says in surprise. He honestly hadn’t thought she would show up in the first place, let alone willingly hold and play with a baby,  _ his  _ baby. They paint a nice picture, he thinks, all smiles in front of the fireplace and the mantel’s twinkling lights, and when Sally sees him, her expression schools itself into something much more dignified. 

“John,” she says. “Thank you for the invite, the party’s lovely. Your landlady’s punch is…”

“Capable of knocking you on your arse,” John finishes drily. 

“Exactly,” she snorts, straightening the collar of Rosie’s holiday dress. His daughter seems positively delighted to be in the arms of a stranger, and he’s not in a hurry to ruin that, even if the stranger is a woman he used to rank high on his (admittedly metaphorical) DNR list. After a beat, Sally clears her throat. 

“I was saddened,” she says, letting Rosie push a tiny finger into one of her tightly-coiled ringlets, “to hear about your wife. It’s… well, awful. I’m sorry for your loss.”

John’s tired of hearing that. “Why, were you the one who shot her?”

Her mouth drops open in shock, and she sputters out a string of words which  _ might  _ be an apology, if given more eloquence, and he lets her. She’s given them years of grief; might as well have her stutter herself hoarse a little more. 

But, inherently, he isn’t cruel, so he eventually cuts her off and says, “Kidding. Thank you, Sally.” 

She narrows her eyes, but a smile threatens at her lips, so John’s fairly sure he’s in the clear. She looks back down at Rosie to murmur in a way even more gentle than Sherlock, and then nods her head towards the man in question. “How’s the fr- Holmes, by the way? With all of this? I’d ask, but that’d mean we were on friendly terms.”

John turns his head to look at him, right as Sherlock looks away. Mrs. Hudson doesn’t even notice his disinterest, still talking a mile a minute, and John watches him nod in mock-agreement and surreptitiously down the rest of his eggnog, leftover from Christmas. He dangles the glass in front of her eyes with only his thumb and forefinger as evidence, as if to say ‘oh, would you look at that’, and excuses himself to the kitchen. John chuckles and turns back. “Sorry, what was that?” 

She’s looking at him strangely. “How are you two?” 

“Oh right.” John shakes his head to clear it, but he finds his eyes wanting to stray back to the kitchen, like a moth to a flame. “He’s fine, we’re fine. He’s amazing with Rosie, shockingly enough. I never would’ve thought.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine,” she says, but her tone is odd. Before he can figure it out, she tilts her arms in his direction, overdramatically until Rosie hiccups a stream of giggles. “D’you want your daughter back?”

His own drink needs some topping up. “Do you mind?” John asks, and Sally shakes her head. She hides her smile by turning back to the bookshelf, pointing out a knick-knack for Rosie to try and grab at, and John thinks (but dares not voice) that motherhood suits her. He wonders if that’s something she’s ever wanted, and then realizes exactly who he’s thinking about. He shivers involuntarily. 

In the kitchen doorway, they collide, like two fish in a narrow stream. “Oh, sorry,” John says. 

“No, not at all,” Sherlock replies. 

They say nothing more, but also make no move to continue on their way, and it’s awkward. John swaps their glasses and takes a sip of eggnog in a move to look more casual than he feels, but it just ends up awfully intimate. “You throw a good party,” he says after a beat. 

Sherlock huffs a laugh, placing John’s empty glass off to the side. “They’re your friends,” he says. “You invited them.”

_ “Our _ friends,” John reminds him, pointedly. “And you decorated.”

“Oh, hardly. Only the parts you couldn’t reach.” Sherlock takes back his eggnog to have a drink, but instead just uses it to hide his smirk. 

John bites his lip to hide a smile and snatches the glass back, saying, “What, not going to take the piss out of that one?”

Someone squeezes past them to get into the kitchen, nudging them closer, and the only thing that keeps them from pressing together is the glass of eggnog between their chests. John holds onto it for dear life. “Oh, I don’t know,” Sherlock murmurs, “I quite like how short you are.”

John blinks up in surprise, eyebrows raising. Sherlock’s expression is soft, a mischievous smile nudging at his eyes and lips, and a light pink flush paints his cheekbones. Déjà vu. John licks his lips. 

“I’ve never heard that one before,” he says truthfully. 

Sherlock’s smile widens, and he lifts his hand to the bridge of his own nose, palm flat and parallel to the floor. He moves it straight across so it brushes the crown of John’s head. Playfully, he musses his fingers at the hair there, flopping it over his forehead like bangs, holding in his laughter with nasal, childlike snorts. 

And, just like that, like sun-warmed water rushing over his ribcage, John thinks,  _ now.  _

He jabs at Sherlock’s stomach until he drops his arm in self-defense, his own breathing shallow and rapid and, he’s sure, his heart in his eyes. “Don’t test me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The Moment is upon them. The backs of John’s fingers brush the royal-blue silk of Sherlock’s shirt, and it’s startlingly warm, warmer than his own skin. Sherlock’s chest shudders and he lowers his eyes. “Now?”

What do they look like, John wonders? Like friends, like lovers? Or have they always looked like this? He glances to the living room, where absolutely nobody is paying attention to them, and leans in closer. He’s not keen on confessing his undying…  _ somethings _ in a room stuffed with their closest friends, stifled and embarrassed, but he also can’t find the will to deny Sherlock any longer.

Whatever happens,  _ whenever _ it happens, it’s for them. No one else. 

“Later,” John promises. 

At first, only the corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches, like one of his barely-there lopsided smiles. He ducks his head to his feet, as if he’s going to deduce himself from the scuffs on his own shoes. John’s about to continue. But then Sherlock looks back up, and for the barest,  _ briefest  _ second, there’s a grin so brilliant on his face that it’s the embodiment of spring itself and John’s just so… helpless. That’s the word for it. Sherlock bites his lips to reel himself back in before nodding, once, and brushing past back into the kitchen. 

John doesn’t move. The lightbulb above him flickers, but it’s actually his eyelids, rapid and fluttering on the tailend of his adrenaline rush. There’s one thought that formulates itself, flashing itself in his mind with warning sirens and blinking lights:

_ What the  _ hell  _ am I going to say to him?  _

It’s not as if he’s thought it all over. He’s been specifically  _ avoiding  _ thinking it all over, too cowardly to even broach the subject. The whole point of all of this was to wait until he was ready, before going on and taking the final step, the leap of faith. Breaking down the only barrier that still divides them. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, what he even  _ feels  _ with enough potency to warrant a confession, and… he’s just  _ not ready.  _

Maybe the  _ actual  _ point is that he’ll never be. 

Eventually, when he can find his feet again, he shuffles back into the sitting room and strikes up an aimless conversation with Sarah. He’s still holding the eggnog like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded to Earth. 

Later, it’s nearing ten, and it seems like the strike of midnight is an ocean away. An unlikely alliance between New Scotland Yard and a few of Sherlock’s homeless network have started up a game of charades in the corner, and everybody seems to be lightly tipsy and full of good cheer. John catches up with Mike and his wife, then Anthea, and he finally rounds back around to Mrs. Hudson, who’s fawning over the party and their decorating skills. 

“... Usually men can’t figure out interior design even if the instructions were a picture book, and here there’s  _ two  _ men, but you both ended up making the flat quite lovely. Of course, usually, erm,  _ certain  _ men have an eye for style and fashion. My hairstylist is gay, did you know that, John? His name is Carlos and he does such a  _ lovely  _ job, better than any woman I’ve ever gone to. Just yesterday, I…” 

John zones out and glances into the kitchen, to where Sherlock and Molly seem to be having a serious conversation. Not an argument, persay, but not casual small-talk either, out of place among the lighthearted atmosphere. John narrows his eyes curiously at the sight.

When Sherlock turns his head and meets John’s stare, he blanches. Molly says one more thing, gesturing towards the sitting room, and when Sherlock doesn’t immediately react she takes a step forward and nudges him out of the kitchen. 

Sherlock blinks and turns back around, as if to return, but Molly just shakes her head, the firmest John’s ever seen her. Sherlock drops his head in defeat. It’s almost comical, John thinks, like watching a performance on the telly. He nearly expects a generic laugh track to follow. Sherlock’s shoulders straighten, he visibly takes a deep breath, and it’s only a few strides before he reaches John. 

“Excuse us, Mrs. Hudson,” he says, giving her a tight-lipped smile and jerking his head imperceptibly to the side. She huffs but pats John’s arm anyway before puttering off to save Mycroft, from where he’s seated at John’s chair and looking terrified while he holds Rosie as if he’s never seen a baby before. John turns back to the man before him. 

“Sherlock,” he says. 

“John,” he replies carefully. His hands are behind his back, spine stiff, and Spock seems to have made a reappearance with his carefully blank expression. His words do nothing to negate the fact. “It is my understanding that there is a tradition on New Years Eve, occurring between the countdown and the champagne toast. Are you aware of it?” 

“Yes…” John says slowly, suspiciously. There’s a rock forming in the pit of his stomach, and he really, really hopes that Sherlock’s (not?) about to ask if-

“Would you like to engage in that tradition?” He closes his eyes, the barest falter of emotion before opening them back up and closing off his face once more. “With me?” 

_ There it is. _ John tries not to let a hysterical giggle bubble up his throat. He glances around the sitting room and notices Molly, from where she’s talking to Greg and very transparently watching them from above her wine glass. He shakes his head to clear it. “Sherlock,” he says. “Are you asking me to kiss you when the clock strikes twelve?” 

“I…” He visibly swallows, and his mask slips. “I suppose I am. Yes.” 

“Then ask me,” John replies, breathlessly. 

Sherlock’s lips twitch, and he softens. “John,” he murmurs, “will you-”

“Yes.” 

“You didn’t even let me ask!” Sherlock laughs. As if on instinct, John reaches out so their fingers brush together, and suddenly Sherlock turns a shade darker. Beneath the thudding of his heartbeat, John feels like a helium balloon, floating into the atmosphere… soon, the pressure will pop him, but for now, all he can do find something to tether onto before the inevitable. When Mrs. Hudson returns, John draws back his hand reluctantly. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, cradling Rosie in her arms, “But I believe it’s quite past Miss Rosamund’s bedtime. John, would you like me to...?” 

“Oh, here, I’ve got her,” John says, but before he can, Sherlock takes her himself in a move that he’s ever so perfected, gentle and sure. He does this so often, stealing Rosie for himself, that John’s surprised he  _ ever  _ gets to hold his own daughter. 

“I’ll take this one,” Sherlock says. He blinks down to Rosie’s face, who can’t keep her eyes open nor her head from lolling onto his shoulder, and murmurs, “Are you ready for bed, Watson? I’ll read you a story, if you’d like.” She doesn’t seem to have noticed the change in person. John cups her head and leans forward to press a kiss to her temple. 

“Goodnight, my love,” he says. Beside her, the rapid pulse fluttering at Sherlock’s throat matches John’s own, and he squints up to meet Sherlock’s eyes, the overhead light behind his head bright and fuzzy like a halo. Rosie is readjusted to fit more snugly against his side. 

“Midnight?” he asks.

John chuckles, but it only serves to hide the tempest within his chest. “I’ll be there.”

 

*** * ***

 

Once, for a case, while Sherlock had hung off of him with spindly, grabby arms atop the pub’s wobbling stools, John had swayed too close, and Sherlock had kissed him.

Not  _ really,  _ though - it had started at the corner of his lips and ended a few inches to the side of them, and was, in a word, unromantic. Not earth-shattering in the slightest. It was before the Fall, before the Woman - hell, before even Moriarty at the pool _. _ It was before John had  _ known _ , so he hadn’t given it any thought… except for the fact that it had stayed planted in his brain, all these years later. Obviously, the lights were on upstairs long before he realized they were himself.

_ “He’s leaving, John,” _ Sherlock had said, unwinding himself and getting to his feet, shedding the perfect impersonation of intoxication in less than a second. He looked down with a smile.  _ “Rather disgustedly, I’d say. Care to figure out where he’s going?”  _

John stood and shook himself of the pint he’d had.  _ “Of course,”  _ he’d said with a small, eager smile of his own.

It didn’t even register as a kiss until John started yearning for something more. Now, every time he thinks of it, the skin between his mouth and the hinge of his jaw stings like razor-burn, and he wishes the homophobic serial killer would just break out of prison already so Sherlock can kiss him again. 

 

*** * ***

 

“What’s this, then?” 

Sally’s found the guitar. It’s not exactly  _ hidden,  _ though Sherlock had toyed with the idea earlier. John’s actually surprised it’s only  _ just  _ now being noticed ten minutes before midnight, after the flat having been full of detectives and nosy neighbors alike, but he supposes Sherlock had a point all the times he’s bemoaned Scotland Yard’s (dis)abilities of perception. Sherlock doesn’t move from where he’s lounged on his armchair. 

“Do you want me to tell you the answer, or would you like to work it out for yourself?” 

She huffs, but she’s smiling, and it’s both confused and tinged with an emotion seeming far away. “I didn’t think you’d play guitar, is all,” she says, a bite defensive. “When I was younger, I played the bass in-”

“I know,” he interrupts, then adds rather begrudgingly, “We were within a few years in secondary school. You were quite good.” 

“Play us a song,” Greg says, before Sally can flounder for a reply to the ever-rare Holmesian compliment.

There are sounds of agreement, and the living room shrinks with the weight of their guests’ curiosity, bodies circling tighter in anticipation of something new. Sherlock looks to John as if to say ‘help me’, eyes widening and teeth slightly bared in emphasis, but John just shrugs good-naturedly. “The people want a show,” he says. “We are the hosts, after all.” 

“Always grateful of the support,” Sherlock mumbles sardonically, but he holds out an imperial hand in Sally’s direction anyway. It reminds John of the way he used to be, full of ridiculously lazy demands, requesting his laptop from where it would sit beside him like the effort of reaching over was too ambitious to attempt. Surprisingly, Sally allows it, carefully picking up the guitar by the neck and body and walking it over with a gentleness John would’ve been surprised at, if he hadn’t seen the way she was holding his daughter earlier. It takes no time at all for the requests to start flooding in. 

“Play a Christmas song!” Mrs. Hudson suggests. 

“No, we’ve been dealing with that since October, give us a break! There’s a new pop song-” 

“Ugh, nobody here is under the age of 30. Play The Beatles-”

“No, they’re overplayed! Maybe-”

“I have a request,” Molly says.

She’s almost too quiet to hear. Sherlock gives John one last look of betrayal, then cocks his head in invitation, eyes inquisitive and touched with a sort of sorrowful kindness that he only reserves for her. John wonders if he’ll ever forgive himself the way she’s already forgiven him. Self-conscience of the eyes on her, she walks up awkwardly to whisper something in his ear. 

_ “Oh,”  _ he says. “That’s interesting. Of course, I know how to play it, but that’s not what I was expecting.” 

“I’ll… take that as a compliment?” 

Sherlock nods approvingly, already readying the guitar on his lap. “It was meant as one.” He goes on to announce, louder, “I’m not singing!” 

“What song is it, then?” Sally asks, but Sherlock’s already playing. It’s complicated and rhythmic, played in a wistful key that reminds John of the rainforest, or of rain in general, pattering down on the ground with the same softness as the finger-plucked strings. John’s never heard of him play it before, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t; the genius can play what he hears without practice. 

Greg recognizes it first. “Oh, Oh! I know it, what’s the name again?” 

It’s still too vague to tell. Someone from the homeless network clears her throat, her name something like ‘Melinda’ as far as John remembers, and she sings, pointedly,  _ “I hear the drums echoing tonight.”  _

Faces alight in recognition, a few laughs and several groans smattered into the mix, but a good chunk of people join in on the following verse. Molly seems pleased with herself, even if she’s not singing along, and when she meets John’s eyes he gives her a slight nod of approval. She blushes, but not before smiling even wider. 

“ _ But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation.”  _

John feels like he’s in the bloody ‘Sound of Music’, but it’s fine. It’s all fine. Their friends are happy and singing off-key and swaying against each other, still nursing the freshly-poured champagne they’re saving for the first few seconds after midnight. Mike’s one of the ones singing along, and he leans too far into John’s space to jostle him expectantly. John rolls his eyes, but adds in, reluctantly,  _ “She’s coming in, 12:30 flight…”  _

Mike laughs, then goes back to leaning against his wife. Greg’s loudly flubbing all the words, but he’s making a valiant effort.  _ “The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation.” _

Sherlock’s playing louder, more confidently, and he’s really in his element, John thinks. Not the center of attention, though the bloody git wouldn’t mind that either, but playing the music right now, he’s responsible for the joy of the people he cares about most. His eyes are closed, and his fingers play the most complicated of melodies as if by heart and not from an 80’s pop song, turning it into something beautiful and organic and so utterly _Sherlock_ John could cry. 

_ “I stopped an old man along the way…”  _

As if possessed, John walks until he’s directly beside where Sherlock sits, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Something masochistic, he’d wager. 

_ “Hoping to find some long-forgotten words or ancient melodies.” _

John reaches out and touches his shoulder.  _ “He turned to me as if to say…”  _ Sherlock looks up and grins at him, the same grin as before, like the clouds part just for light to fall across his cheeks. The lightest bit of perspiration tufts his curls out of place, dampens the fabric under his armpits, and John can’t imagine looking away. His heart picks up into double-time. His breathing becomes shallow. 

_ “Hurry boy, it’s waiting there for you.”  _

Someone shouts, “Oi, the countdown’s starting!” 

Sherlock stops playing, melody unresolved. Somebody turns up the telly on BBC to the crowds of people at the riverside of the Thames, all flashing colors and whistles and celebration. John wasn’t expecting midnight to come this fast. Sherlock stands, sets the guitar off to the side, and suddenly they’re upon each other, John’s breathing unsteady and quickening by the second. Air, he needs air-

_ 10… 9… 8…  _

“Ready?” Sherlock murmurs.

_ No,  _ John wants to say. He feels like the embodiment of a tornado.  _ ‘You’re panicking,’  _ a voice in his head says vaguely, if he had the mind to listen to it. Panicking. He feels like he’s in a school of fish, crowded and devoid of thought, and it’s all too much, he needs to- 

“John?” Sherlock asks, sounding worried. “Is everything alright?” 

_ 7… 6…  _

“No,” John manages between gasping breaths. “I have-I have to-”

Strong hands grab onto his shoulders, but he breaks from them roughly. He finally looks up to meet Sherlock’s eyes, to find them guarded and vulnerable, a juxtaposition all at once. Like the man who owns them. A walking contradiction. 

_ 5… 4…  _

“I can’t,” John says helplessly. 

Sherlock furrows his brow, trying to deduce in midair the clues that don’t exist. His eyes are much too boyish, and he says in a voice much too small, “Is it me? Did I…?” 

_ 3… 2…  _

The apology is in John’s eyes far before it leaves his mouth, but he says it anyway. “I’m sorry.”

_ 1…  _

“No, wait-”

_ “Happy New Year!” _

John’s already halfway down the stairwell. Cheers erupt behind him in celebration, champagne glasses clink, friends give loud, theatrical kisses. Through the television, Big Ben chimes louder than it does through the window of 221B, only at a slight delay. Somehow, Rosie stays asleep. 

John doesn’t look back. 

 

*** * ***

 

_ It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you _ __   
_ There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do _ __   
_ I bless the rains down in Africa _ _   
_ __ Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

[“Africa” by Toto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9gBi5LeQ9Y&index=9&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg)

 

*** * ***

 

Shockingly, it’s freezing cold outside. John’s perched on the steps in front of 221’s door, breathing warmth into his hands and trying to keep his mind as deserted as Baker Street is, at the moment. Soon it’ll be bustling like it does every year, full of drunken patrons and groups of teens headed home from the fireworks display that just ended, but for now he’s grateful there’s only the occasional car passing by to worry about. 

The panic had faded as quickly as it appeared, which is a slap in the face, if John’s being completely honest. The most important decision of his life (sorry, Mary), all thrown off by a bit of hyperventilation that  _ poof _ ed out of existence the moment it could. 

The universe throws them together until they’re  _ finally  _ ready, and then it pulls them apart. Bollocks.

He hears the front door open and close behind him. Something heavy drops over his shoulders, and he’s mildly surprised to discover it’s his own jacket. “Thanks,” he says. “Look, Sherlock, I’m sorry-”

But the man who walks down the front stoop isn’t Sherlock. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

Mycroft goes to stand under the cover of Speedy’s, his beloved umbrella nowhere in sight. John watches him carefully, expectantly, like Mycroft’s a viper planning to strike at any moment, but it’s like the man doesn’t even know he’s there. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it, taking a slow drag that mingles with the frost of normal winter’s exhale. It’s silent for a moment. 

“Has Sherlock ever told you about Benjamin?” Mycroft finally asks. 

John nods slowly, sliding his arms through his coat’s sleeves. Mycroft continues on. 

“He was an utter brat. My brother thought we hated the boy because we were homophobic, but he could’ve dated a horse for all mother and father cared. No, Benjamin used him to graduate and never wanted to be seen with him, and Sherlock fell for it.” He takes another drag, gazing ahead with eyes that seem fathoms away. “From then on, he swore off love forever. I was no help, I admit; I figured out the idiocy of the emotion long before him, so I was more than happy to have company to bask in loneliness with. However, I  _ did  _ make sure to tip off the universities Benjamin applied to, to just where he got his applications from.”

John mulls that over, and decides that if he ever meets this ‘Benjamin’ bloke, he’s clocking him. “I’m hardly using Sherlock to write my essays,” John says carefully. 

Mycroft harrumphs. “Obviously. Point being, my brother is an idiot when it comes to his own heart. Bit of a weakness, he refuses to work on it, but no matter. He’s taking your hesitation as rejection, and can’t fathom it being anything but.”

“What?” John’s taken aback at that. Rejection? “Your brother  _ knows  _ he means the world to me-”

Mycroft wrinkles his nose as if smelling something bad and flaps his hand, shooing the words away. “Please don’t start waxing poetic about my brother to me. I came out here for a smoke break, and nothing more.” 

John purses his lips together. Behind him, the front door opens again, and this time it’s Anthea. She walks down the front stoop, nearly stepping on John’s hand, and mumbles an apology down at her phone at John’s sound of protest. Mycroft’s umbrella is looped around her wrist. As if on cue, a familiar black car pulls up to the curb. Mycroft stomps out his cigarette, but before he opens the passenger door, he pauses and looks back to John with eyes that twinkle in the most unsettling of ways. 

“I’ve entrusted my brother in your care for the better part of a decade,” he says finally. His voice is wry, the closest to humor as he’ll ever get. “I would hate for you to have nothing to show for it.”

And they’re off. John watches the car disappear down the street before he straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin, reminiscent of parade rest. This isn’t him. He’s not a coward, not someone who flees instead of facing the things he’s afraid of, who has a panic attack over a bloody  _ kiss _ . He’s  _ brave,  _ damnit. 

He can’t tell if he’s telling the truth or trying to convince himself. 

Inside, Sherlock is gone, somewhere behind the closed door of his bedroom. Nobody seems to have noticed John’s abrupt exit, nor the twenty-minute-long vanishment act that had followed. “He drank too much,” Greg chuckles, clapping John’s back on his way out. “Great party, by the way.”

John mutters a thanks, and wars between knocking on the bedroom door and helping clean up in the kitchen. Does Sherlock want to be alone? That question never has a consistent answer. Is he actually drunk? Stag nights and graduated cylinders fly around his head, like a cartoon depicting a daydream, and he shakes them away. In the end, Mrs. Hudson decides for him. 

“Oh, dear, I just dropped the crackers. John? Could you-” 

“Yeah, sure,” he says absently, dropping down to pick up the crumbly mess. He’ll have to hoover tomorrow, and makes a mental note to figure out where  _ exactly  _ the vacuum cleaner even is. Maybe Sherlock knows. Would that be a good enough excuse to talk to him tonight? 

He looks up and meets Molly’s eyes, where she’s cleaning off the plate that had the chicken wings. She looks worried. “Is… Is everything alright?”

John just smiles tightly and keeps cleaning. After everyone leaves, he oscillates for a moment, floorboard creaking outside of Sherlock’s door. A love affair, he remembers. He raises his hand as if to knock, then thinks better of it and starts up the stairs. 

_ New Year, new me,  _ John thinks bitterly. He hopes the universe understands sarcasm. 

 

*** * ***

 

John stares at his daughter through the bars of her crib, and feels a pang of jealousy at how easily she sleeps. 

From downstairs, a guitar plays a melody. It’s too quiet to make out, but it still drifts through the floor and echoes in the cavity of John’s chest. He can feel the plucked bass of the low notes in his ribs, the high strings in his heartbeat, the acoustic vibrations in his bloodstream. In the delirious way only a sleep-deprived man could, John imagines Sherlock playing him like a guitar, and isn’t surprised when he realizes, at least metaphorically, he already does. 

The snow makes it look lighter outside than it is, but John closes his eyes anyway, hoping sleep envelopes him eventually. Later in the morning, they’ll talk it out, they always do, and they’ll be back to normal. Maybe something more, if Sherlock still wants it. Maybe not. 

The ball’s in his court now. Hopefully he rallies it back soon. 

John will wait as long as he needs to. 

 

*** * ***

 

You know what? Sod that.

 

*** * ***

 

It’s still mostly dark outside, but the staircase is alit just enough with the blue-ish glow of morning to keep John from tumbling down. His steps are even as he descends, like a muffled metronome to the barely-there music. When he reaches the sitting room, he lingers in the doorway. 

Sherlock’s perched on the desk, his feet atop the stool and toes bare beneath the hem of his pajama bottoms. Is he cold? He looks aimlessly out the window, guitar propped on his thighs, soft fingertips plucking the strings in the barebones of a familiar melody. There’s no need to turn on the lights, not when the snow outside against the dawning sky illuminates the flat just as well as pale sunlight. The floorboard creaks beneath John’s feet. Sherlock stops, but doesn’t turn his head. 

“No, keep playing,” John starts, shuffling forward so he’s not some ghost haunting the edges. “It’s lovely.”

There’s no reply. Carefully, John settles into Sherlock’s chair, turning it so it half-faces the window and puts them parallel to each other. He’s significantly closer to the floor, neck nearly craning at the angle, but what else is new? Sherlock watches him, expression inscrutable, and after a beat goes on to pluck some more. His voice cracks when he finally speaks, rusted with disuse.

_ “[Clair de Lune,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q6ZW6ipjCk&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg&index=7) _ by Debussy. It’s written for piano, but the guitar has enough versatility to allow both individual notes and chords. I could never master its exact nuance on violin, not one string at a time.”

The title of the song reminds John sharply of Mary, but he ignores it. He clears his throat until Sherlock looks his way. “Good morning.” 

His lips twitch. “Good morning.”

“How did you sleep?” 

“Didn’t.” He turns his head to keep John in his periphery, eyelashes caught reddish-gold in the light, and says, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Never bothered you before.” John’s voice sounds terribly fond. “I’ve long gotten used to your violin playing at random hours of the night.” 

Sherlock scoffs and smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I really was a prick back then, wasn’t I?” 

“Yes, an insurmountable one.” John takes a sip of water, perches it on the hard curve of his knee. “Fortunately, the title has since been passed on to me.” 

“Excuse me?” The guitar abruptly stops on a stray, out-of-tune note. He seems more offended by the last bit than the first, face painted in an expression equal parts confusion and affront. At this point, John’s not even surprised, but he  _ is _ ashamed of the martyrdom. How many times does he have to make Sherlock defend John to  _ himself?  _ He’s still guilty about everything he’s put Sherlock through, his _ supposed _ closest friend, and he’s not sure he’ll ever let that go. He hesitates, then sets his glass on the floor so he can lean forward on his knees. 

“At least you warned me about the violin playing,” he says carefully. Might as well push everything out to the open. “You didn’t know about the anger problems, the unexpected baby crying at all hours of the night, the wife who tried to murder you…”

“Mary was-”

“We’re not talking about Mary.”

Sherlock’s jaw tenses, and he turns his head to look back out the window, where the snow is beginning to fall again. His hands are braced tightly around the guitar as if he’s ready to heave it away. “Then what are we talking about, John?” 

It’s quiet. Past the heater, John can hear the barely-there susurrus of snowflakes settling onto the ground in mounds, even through the window. A car passes, slow and careful atop the unpredictable frost, and John relates to it on a personal level. He hesitates. “Last night. Or this morning, rather. I’m sorry I couldn’t… well. I got scared.” 

Sherlock’s voice is bitter, and he sets his guitar behind him to prop precariously on the desk’s clutter. “I didn’t realize I was so frightening.” 

_ “Sherlock.” _

“I know, I know.” Sherlock exhales, letting out some of the defensiveness in his shoulders with it. “I apologize for that. I’ve just… I’ve been waiting, John. Not just these past several months, but…  _ years.  _ I thought…” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, and admits, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

John watches him. Watches the man he… the man he  _ loves,  _ and just like that, he doesn’t realize why it’s been so difficult. Why he’s been afraid to give in, to bare his soul, when their souls were never covered to begin with, not to each other. He thinks of meeting Sherlock for the first time at Bart’s, of running through London with him, of visiting his grave, of saving him from death, of Chinese food and pale eyes and fake suicides and gunshots and guilt and stag nights and jealousy and secret sisters and words unspoken and  _ love- _

… 

On second thought, this is the simplest thing in the world. 

“Kathmandu.” 

Sherlock blinks. “Pardon?” 

It’s always a thrill, when Sherlock Holmes is rendered confused just like the rest of us. John stands and takes a step closer, and the chair between them presses against his knees. Like this, Sherlock perched on the desk, they’re the same height, but John can’t help feeling like he’s only a centimeter tall. 

“Kathmandu, Nepal,” he clarifies, voice wavering. “I looked it up. Right now, it’s… 11:58 pm, on December 31st. In two minutes, they’ll be celebrating New Year’s halfway across the globe.” 

Understanding dawns behind Sherlock’s eyes, and his mouth shapes John’s name without sound. Unsteadily, John lifts his hands to let them rest on Sherlock’s thighs, and the muscles beneath his fingers flutter. 

“I’m not one for declarations of love,” John says. “You make fun of me being a ‘romantic’ or of poems you’re convinced I write for every which girlfriend, but truth is, I’m bloody terrified. I get angry too easily, I hold grudges, I’m illogical, half the time I can’t even explain why I’m upset, but you…” John huffs out a laugh. “Years ago, if somebody asked me if you were capable of love, I wouldn’t have known how to answer. Now, I  _ want _ somebody to ask, just so I can shake them by the shoulders and ask them how much of an idiot they are if they can’t see the answer right in front of their eyes?” 

Sherlock’s hands run up John’s arms until he cups his face, palms cool and dry like a stone. His eyes are glassy and his breaths are shallow, and he shakes his head in short, quick jerks. “No one else,” he manages. “Just for you.” 

“Good.” John feels breathless. “I’m sure you’ve already deduced, but I’m in love with you.” 

There it is, like tugging out a stray hair from the root. The pain is sharp and oh-so-welcome. Sherlock’s hands spasm on John’s face, and he stammers, “I… yes. The same.” 

John’s laugh is caught in his throat. It threatens to bubble out. “Can I kiss you?” 

“It’s 12:01 in Kathmandu now.”

“I don’t care.” 

They crash together. Despite his skin, Sherlock’s lips are warm, and he presses John’s face to his like they’re going to merge into one, and John wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. Sherlock kicks the chair between them over to where it topples into the living room and clambers off the desk to press John into the window, hands still locked around his face. The cold at his back and the warmth at his front are in stark contrast with each other, and when John’s fingers go beneath Sherlock’s ratty tee to knead into the muscles of his back, a low groan escapes from Sherlock’s throat. John swallows it down like he’s suffocating and it’s a gallon of oxygen. 

Rosie’s cry sounds from the floor above. Sherlock kisses him sweetly, one last time, before dropping his head to John’s shoulder to catch his breath. “I’ve dreamt about this,” he admits. 

John’s laugh is so high-pitched, it borders on a giggle. “You have?” 

“Of course.” He lifts his head enough for John to see his grin, painfully boyish. “Turns out, I’ve been grossly underestimating how good of a kisser you are.” 

“You? Underestimating me?” He wraps his arms tighter around the taller man, soaking in his warmth. “What a strange and completely new experience. I’m reeling in shock.” 

Sherlock swats him, and Rosie cries again. John sighs. “I’ll get her.”

“I can go-”

“I need you down here,” John interrupts, pulling away. “Playing your guitar. The same thing as earlier, it’ll calm her down. And then, afterwards, later tonight when she goes to bed and it’s midnight in Argentina, I’ll kiss you again, even if January 2nd is nothing to celebrate. And I’ll keep kissing you until it’s midnight across the United States. I’ll kiss you on all the midnights. Would that be alright?” 

“Idiot,” Sherlock chides softly, his voice not as smooth as he was probably trying to make it. With a small smile, he picks up his guitar and reclaims his armchair. “Go on, then,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

He begins to play Clair de Lune again. John drops a kiss to his temple, because he can, now. “Always?” 

Sherlock tilt his head back, so the words are spoken against John’s mouth. “As long as you’ll have me,” he murmurs. 

John takes that as a ‘yes’. 

 

*** * ***

 

It is a simple fact, not an opinion nor any sort of half-arsed claim, that Sherlock Holmes is a passionate man that feels things in a potent, all-encompassing way.

When he plays the guitar with gentle fingers, when he sings with the sweetness of white-gold honey, when he lulls a baby to sleep, when he cries in the night to long-gone threats, when he kisses John as if he’ll never breathe again… John is wading in the ocean, and finds that the water isn’t so terrifying, if he just lets himself drown. 

Day fades, lovers twine, and in the morning, lips press to bare skin as warm as sunlight. Eyes open. And somewhere, far away, a clock is chiming midnight and Sherlock makes good of their New Year’s promise every day of the year.

Such mornings are John’s favorite.

 

*** * ***

 

_ You pulled me together _ __   
_ With blood and soft stitches _ __   
_ You're proof that I'm breathing _ __   
_ And that I still need _ __   
_ To be loved and to hear you _ __   
_ Whisper to me _ __   
  
[“The Pugilist” by Keaton Henson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHxRKGi6r-U&index=1&list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg)

  
* 3x.   


**Author's Note:**

> Hey bees! I'm over at [@chrysanthemumsies](http://chrysanthemumsies.tumblr.com/) if you want to check out my tumblr, and [here is a small youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaNcJbgHN9N6A3-VmgPIK7rYS9g1PLQYg) that goes along with the songs used in this fic. Thanks for reading :^)


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